Paul Fauvet
2 October 2008
opinion
Maputo — The visions of Mozambique given by the formal opening speeches on Thursday, at the end of year session of the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, were so different, that an observer could have been forgiven for thinking that the ruling Frelimo Party and the opposition Renamo-Electoral Union coalition were not talking about the same country.
Nowhere was the difference starker than in the approach to local development. Both Manuel Tome, the head of the Frelimo parliamentary group, and his Renamo opposite number, Maria Moreno, spoke of the Local Investment Initiative Fund, under which every year nine million meticais (about 373,000 US dollars) is transferred from the state budget to each of the 128 districts - seven million as a rotating credit fund for socio-economic projects to boost food production and create jobs, and two million for infrastructure.
For Tome these were resourses that genuinely stimulated economic development in the districts, but Moreno saw in them nothing but the cancerous spread of corruption.
"Economic activity within the districts has increased", said Tome. "The allocation of seven million meticais to produce food and stimulate employment has contributed to the appearance of micro-companies such as tinsmiths, flour mills, small food processing units and to fish farming, and to greater circulation of money in the districts".
He backed this up with figures. Tome said that in 2007 alone this local investment fund had financed "1,726 food production projects, 592 job creation projects, 1,603 earnings improvement projects and the planting of 2.7 million trees".
Moreno, however, concentrated on the failure of the beneficiaries of the fund to repay the money, claiming that there was no return on 95 per cent of the loans. "Inexplicably, this money was thrown at the districts without knowing very well how it would be allocated, and what the mechanisms were for repayment", she said.
"Seven million meticais per district left the state coffers to be used in an ad-hoc way, and we know that almost all this money was used in projects that never existed, and it was enough to be a member of the ruling party to gain access to it", she added. "Since credit institutions exist, why doesn't the government use these services to ensure that money reaches people?"
Moreno's question implies that Mozambique has a functioning national banking system. In reality, it does not. The overwhelming majority of bank branches are located in the cities, and in June this year only 36 of the 128 districts had any banks at all. The commercial banks are also reluctant to lend to high risk agricultural projects, and impose punitive interest rates.
The investment fund, she claimed, "instead of becoming a mechanism for developing the district has become transformed into an instrument of political party coercion, a means to feed still further corruption. This government no longer wants corruption concentrated in the capital. Iit wants to spread it throughout the country".
Tome pointed to the Frelimo government's successes in education and health. He said that this year 5.7 million pupils enrolled in primary and secondary education, an increase of 42.7 per cent on the figure for 2004 (the year before the current government took office), when 3.98 million were enrolled.
Prior to independence, he added, there were only 700,000 children enrolled in all forms of education.
Tome also stressed the reduction in the infant mortality rate from 147 to 105 per thousand live births between 1997 and 2006. The government was thus on the path to meeting the goal of cutting child mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015.
None of this figured in Moreno's speech. For her, Mozambique is "one of the most corrupt countries in the world", and to back this up she cited the latest report from the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International, which ranked Mozambique in 126th position out of 180 countries. Since TI ranks 54 countries as worse than Mozambique, Moreno was distorting the report to say that Mozambique is "among the most corrupt".
A serious problem for the pessimistic school is that, with the appointment of Augusto Paulino as Attorney-General a year ago (an appointment fiercely opposed by Renamo), the legal system has begun to pursue corruption cases more seriously. Cases that had stagnated under Paulino's predecessor, Joaquim Madeira, are now coming to court, most notably the theft of the equivalent of nine million US dollars from the Ministry of the Interior. The man who was minister at the time, Almerino Manhenje, and eight others were arrested ten days ago.
To maintain her position that the authorities are not serious about fighting corruption, Moreno had to suggest that the arrest of Manhenje was merely cosmetic. "Can situations of corruption and trafficking in influence be reduced just to this case involving one ex-Minister?", she asked. "Is this really a sign of genuine vitality and independence on the part of our machinery of justice? If other offenders, in cases brought to light more recently, are tried, then we may finally believe that the Attorney-General's Office is doing some work. Otherwise, we will remain with the feeling that this is just a cosmetic measure, and that in this case these detainees are victims of the political moment".
Manhenje was vehemently attacked (and sometimes with good reason) by the opposition when he was in government. Now that he in jail, the head of the opposition in parliament comes close to suggesting that he is a political prisoner. The goalposts are moved, and Paulino will only earn the applause of Renamo when he arrests the people whom Renamo wants him to arrest.
Tome and Moreno were also worlds apart when it came to the country's history, and who deserves to be regarded as a hero. Three days ago, celebrations were held to mark what would have been the 75th birthday of the country's first president, Samora Machel, had he still been alive.
Tome recalled that it was Machel who led Frelimo to victory over Portuguese colonial rule, who proclaimed the country's independence, formed the first Mozambican government, and launched the struggle against underdevelopment.
"Samora Machel wrote his name in the most beautiful and noble pages of the history of out country, the region, the continent and the world", he said. "It was under his leadership that our people extended their unconditional solidarity to the people of Zimbabwe and South Africa who were fighting for their independence, freedom and equality" (and, he might have added, at a time when the Rhodesian and apartheid regimes were using Renamo in their attempts to destroy the young Mozambican republic).
"Samora Machel was and always will be an uncontested example of those who symbolize the heroes and myths of our history", Tome declared.
Except that in the ranks of Renamo he is contested, and a few minutes later Moreno claimed that the mention of Machel awoke memories "of the ferocious Marxism-Leninism which promised 'to break the back of the armed bandits'. But here we are, full of pride for the struggle we wages. Here we are, full of energy to continue to fight for the same ideals".
Moreno preferred Andre Matsangaissa, the man habitually described as the founder of Renamo (though in reality that dubious honour belongs to Ken Flower, the head of the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation in the 1970s). The Rhodesians put Matsangaissa at the head of Renamo at a time when it operated as nothing more than an irregular unit in the Rhodesian armed forces.
Moreno claimed that the people who had freed Mozambique from colonialism had been overcome by "political autism", but prophesied that one day they would recognise the "heroism" of Matsangaissa.
One can confidently predict that this prophecy will come true on the day that statues to Vidkun Quisling are erected in the streets of Oslo.
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