9 October 2008
Maputo — The "Green Revolution" in Mozambique does not depend on genetically modified seeds, Prime Minister Luisa Diogo assured the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on Thursday.
Winding up a two day debate in which the government had answered questions from deputies about the proposed "Green Revolution", and about the social security system, Diogo said that Ismael Mussa, a deputy from the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, was quite wrong to assume that higher yields require genetically modified seeds.
"In fact, the use of genetically modified seeds in Mozambique is banned", said Diogo. "We are using improved seeds that are produced in Mozambique, but they have not been genetically modified. The only seeds we still need to import are for wheat".
She thanked Mussa for his words of praise earlier in the day, when he had expressed appreciation for the speeches by the Agriculture and Labour Ministers, Soares Nhaca and Helena Taipo, who had "spoken with respect".
"Unfortunately, we cannot say the same about Mussa's parliamentary group who called us corrupt, thieves and looters", she added (these insults were repeatedly made on Wednesday by Renamo deputy Luis Boavida).
Some deputies seemed unaware what year it was, and talked as if the country was still mired in the poverty of 1992, the year the war of destabilisation ended. Diogo said she was surprised that Angelina Enoque, a Renamo member of the Assembly's governing board, its Standing Commission, had claimed that hunger and poverty are on the rise when the statistics show the opposite.
"These are not just numbers, they are felt in the lives of Mozambicans", the Prime Minister declared.
She pledged that the major projects mentioned in the government's five year programme would indeed become a reality. One of these projects, the complete reconstruction of the Sena railway line, linking the port of Beira to the Moatize coal mines in Tete province, a distance of over 600 kilometres, is nearing completion. Diogo pointed out that the reconstruction teams have crossed the Zambezi, and reached Mutarara district, in the eastern part of Tete. Next year they would arrive in Moatize.
"We carry out what we promise", Diogo stressed.
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