6 December 2007
Maputo — Deputies from Mozambique's former rebel movement Renamo on Thursday made an unsuccessful attempt to stop government ministers replying to the debate on the 2008 plan and budget in the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.
The problem was that the government simply ran out of its 195 minutes of allotted time for the two day debate. There were three more government members, including Prime Minister Luisa Diogo, waiting to speak when the Assembly chairman, Eduardo Mulembue, interrupted Energy Minister Salvador Namburete to tell him he was out of time.
This was scarcely surprising, given the huge number of queries raised about the plan and budget by the Assembly's various working commissions, and by individual deputies. The pragmatic line of action would have been to let the government finish - after all, since the deputies had asked the questions, it was reasonable to assume they wanted to hear the explanations.
But no - Renamo was indignant that the government had already gone three and a half minutes over its time.
Renamo had already used all its speaking time - but the majority Frelimo Party still had 19 minutes left. So the head of the Frelimo group, Manuel Tome, promptly offered this to the government.
One Renamo member of the Assembly's governing board, its Standing commission, Joao Alexandre, was quite prepared to accept this. 19 minus three and a half gave the government 15 and a half minutes to wrap the debate up. This should have been sufficient, since the ministers waiting to speak, offered to relinquish their speeches and let Diogo speak for the entire government.
But Renamo rejected this easy solution. Renamo deputy Rui de Sousa demanded to know what was the "legal basis" for Frelimo donating time to the government. He was backed up by Viana Magalhaes, the Assembly's second deputy chairperson, who claimed there was no provision in the Assembly's standing orders for Tome's offer of unused time.
For Frelimo, Hermenegildo Gamito said it was simple logic that Frelimo could do what it liked with its 19 minutes. Frelimo could even give Renamo that time, if it so chose.
Opposition deputy Maximo Dias asked how much time the government would need to complete all its answers, and after consultation with Diogo, Mulembue said the final government statements would take 50 minutes. Renamo then demanded that an extra 50 minutes be given to the deputies as well. Since time is allotted in proportion to the number of seats held, this would mean 32 minutes for Frelimo and 18 for Renamo.
Tome pointed out that this arrangement canceled his offer of time to the government. The Renamo proposal in reality meant that Frelimo now had 51 minutes (32 plus 19), the government 46 and a half minutes (50 minus three and a half) and Renamo only 18.
"Frelimo will use its time responsibly", said Tome. "As for those who don't want to hear about what the government is doing, that's their problem".
Renamo had the chance to return to what, from their point of view, should have seemed the far more advantageous solution of accepting Tome's original offer and allowing the government to speak for just an extra quarter of an hour. Instead they clung to their 18 minutes.
As a result the entire afternoon was completely dominated by Frelimo and government speeches, and the session ended almost three hours later than scheduled.
Copyright © 2007 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
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