|
|
Mozambique: Anti-Corruption Measures Should Be Accelerated
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
1 May 2008
Posted to the web 1 May 2008
Maputo
Implementation of the Mozambican government's anti-corruption measures should be speeded up "bearing in mind the concern of the private sector that corruption is one of the main constraints weighing on its performance, and the development of the business environment in general".
This is one of the recommendations from the Aide-Memoire agreed on Wednesday between the government and the 19 donors and funding agencies that provide direct support for the state budget, at the end of the annual review of performance.
The document said it was difficult to analyse the present stage of implementation of anti-corruption programmes because of such factors such as "interpretation of the law on the powers of the organs of the administration of justice". This refers to a court ruling that the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption (GCCC) has no power to prosecute corruption cases.
This should not have been a problem - the GCCC should simply have handed over the cases it investigated to the attorneys accredited to each of the provincial court. Instead, the Attorney-General's Office, then under Joaquim Madeira, turned this into an artificial clash between the courts and the attorneys.
When, in August 2007, President Armando Guebuza sacked Madeira and replaced him with Augusto Paulino, the new Attorney-General found that the GCCC had been investigating cases that had nothing to do with corruption, as defined in Mozambican legislation. He had to remove cases of murder, swindles, and the theft of state funds from the GCCC and send them to the relevant provincial branches of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
The Aide-Memoire noted approvingly "the adoption of measures under way to reorganise the GCCC in terms of clarifying its institutional mission, and the recruitment of specialist staff, as part of the overall strategy to strengthen legality".
One blow to the anti-corruption fight was the abolition of the National Anti-Corruption Forum, a measure forced on Guebuza because it had been set up in an unconstitutional manner. The powers of the Forum have now been absorbed by the Inter-Ministerial Commission for Public Sector Reform (CIRESP), a government body which, unlike the Forum, does not contain any civil society representation.
The Aide-Memoire noted that in addition there exists the Development Observatory "as a permanent mechanism of dialogue between the government, civil society and the cooperation partners". There is also a suggestion from the donors to set up a new "independent supervision and monitoring body", the powers of which have yet to be defined.
According to the document, the donors urged the government "to show greater effort in the fight against corruption". They were particularly concerned that the statistics from the GCCC show that not a single case of corruption has yet been judged in the courts.
The Aide-Memoire noted progress in the management of public finances, as the new financial management system, SISTAFE, is gradually rolled out across the state apparatus. This had led to greater transparency and accountability, and stronger control over expenditure.
The government's tax reforms have had the desired result of increasing revenue - so much so that much more money was raised from taxation in 2007 than the government had expected. The target, agreed with the donors over a year ago, was that state revenue should reach 14.9 per cent of Gross Domestic Product. But the final figure was a surprisingly large 16.4 per cent of GDP.
The Aide-Memoire noted "reductions in the level of tax evasion, improvements in managing VAT (Value Added Tax) rebates, and in simplifying fiscal and customs procedures".
Attempts were made in 2007 to increase the state's capacity to carry out internal audits. More staff were recruited for the inspection offices, and 25 per cent more audit reports were completed than in 2006.
As for the macro-economic figures, Mozambique continued to record a high growth rate, despite the floods in early 2007, and despite exogenous shocks such as rising oil prices. The final figures for the year show a real GDP growth rate of 7.3 per cent, higher than the seven per cent target. Among the sectors which made the greatest contribution to this were transport and communications (a growth rate of 20.7 per cent), hotels and restaurants (12.6 per cent), construction (9.9 per cent), and - despite the climatic problems - agriculture, livestock and forestry (8.6 per cent).
But the government's hopes for an average inflation rate of around six per cent were dashed. The January-December inflation rate was 10.3 per cent, while the average inflation rate over the year was 8.2 per cent. This was blamed partly on factors beyond the government's control, such as rising international fuel and food prices.
|
"In a context where here is continual pressure on oil and grain prices on the world market, the country must seek short and medium term solutions to protect the most vulnerable strata of the population", warns the Aide-Memoire.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
