Maputo — Mozambican President Daniel Chapo on Thursday said that, when he took office in January ,"I found a functioning country, but one that was profoundly weakened'.
Giving his annual State of the Nation address to the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, he said the country he found was "a Mozambique plagued by social instability, economic uncertainty and an environment that threatened not only the operations of the state, but also the trust of our people in the future'.
Chapo blamed this on the post-election unrest, which gripped the country from October 2024 to March 2025. He described the unrest as "violent, illegal and criminal demonstrations, which left deep marks on the social and economic fabric of the country'.
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During the violence and rioting, 1,733 commercial establishments were destroyed, he said, including medical warehouses, factories, pharmacies, stores containing humanitarian aid, and banks.
399 public buildings were destroyed, Chapo continued. These included health units, schools, courtrooms, police stations and political party offices. 176 electricity pylons were vandalised, as were 59 mobile phone towers, 25 fuel pumps and 16 tollgates.
The unrest forced the temporary or permanent closure of many companies, with the loss of about 50,000 jobs.
"This sabotage, promoted by forces that are acting against public order and against the national interest, has profound human, psychological and material consequences, costed at 27.4 billion meticais (about 428 million US dollars, at the current exchange rate)', said Chapo.
Missing from Chapo's list are the hundreds of lives lost during the riots, who were overwhelmingly civilians shot dead by police bullets.
Chapo said that funds which should have been spent on expanding the water and electricity grids, or on buying new furniture for schools and hospitals, instead had to be redirected towards repairing the schools that had been burnt down, the vandalised health units, the destroyed medical warehouses, and the administrative buildings that were reduced to ashes.
Repairing the damage is by no means complete. "Hundreds of infrastructures still need to be rehabilitated, and thousands of Mozambicans need to recover their lost jobs', said Chapo. "We cannot be paralysed by the disaster, nor can we allow violence to determine the direction our country and our people will take'.
He called on Mozambicans to act "with speed, pragmatism and the spirit of reconstruction. Thanks to this sense of national urgency, and the resilience of our communities, we have achieved notable victories in re-establishing basic services, recovering destroyed infrastructures and stabilising the political, economic and social environment'.
The unrest pushed the country further into debt. Chapo said the General State Account for 2024 registered an additional deficit of 130 billion meticais (about two billion US dollars), thus putting great pressure on the public finances.
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Furthermore, in the space of less than a year, Mozambique was hit by three tropical cyclones (Chido, Dikeledi and Jude), which affected almost two million people, killing 313 of them.
On taking office in January, "we inherited a country struck by three cyclones, by terrorism in parts of Cabo Delgado province, deeply weakened by violent, illegal and criminal demonstrations, and with an economy in recession', said Chapo.
He did not explain why so many thousands of people had taken part in the demonstrations, and did not revisit the disputes over the fraud that had marred the 2024 elections.
At the end of his speech, Chapo announced presidential pardons for 771 prisoners. He did not say what crimes they are accused of, other than that some were arrested during the post-election rioting.
"This gesture', said Chapo, "will help consolidate reconciliation and harmony among Mozambican brothers'.
