25 August 2008
Muanza — With the mastery of knowledge and hard work, Mozambique will win the fight against absolute poverty, declared President Armando Guebuza on Sunday.
Speaking in Muanza district, as he continued his working visit to the central province of Sofala, Guebuza recalled that for Mozambique to become independent, Mozambicans had to wage war for 10 years against the Portuguese colonial army. He stressed that the fight against poverty would also require a selfless struggle, calling for hard work from all and continuous learning of new techniques.
In his call for more work and study, addressed particularly to the younger generation, Guebuza said that everything good, beautiful, useful and marvelous found in other countries is the result of continuous hard work and study by their peoples, and not something that came about by accident.
He said that in addition to hard work, what will help speed up the eradication of poverty is the mastery of science and new technologies, which is why his government is building schools of every level and specialism.
He recalled that at the time of independence there was only one university in the country, in the capital, and it was almost exclusively reserved for children of the settlers. To illustrate this situation, Guebuza noted that of the 2,000 students that were enrolled in this university in the year of the country's independence, only 40 were Mozambicans.
The absence of an educational structure aimed at Mozambicans meant that "when we proclaimed our independence, we had to start everything from scratch".
Guebuza also noted that, just as the settlers did not build schools and did not allow Mozambicans access to them, "we also had to build hospitals, roads, railways, like the one being built here in Muanza" (the Sena line that will eventually link the coal mines of Tete province to the port of Beira).
Guebuza warned against the tendency of wanting everything to be done at once, saying that the fight against socio-economic backwardness will be a long process that will demand sacrifice and hard work.
But he added that he has personally observed significant progress and that this improvement can be seen in the healthy aspect of the people who attended the rally.
"When I look at you, I see that you have the look of people who are not going hungry any more, which is different from what happened before the signing of the Peace Accord, in 1992. Now you are no longer asking the government for food, you ask for schools and other socio-economic infrastructures", he said, recalling that on his previous visits to this region of central Mozambique, local people looked weak and unhealthy.
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