Maputo — Mozambican President Daniel Chapo has submitted a bill to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, that will eliminate an entire tier of governance, cutting out mountains of red tape, and making substantial savings.
With one stroke of his pen, Chapo undid the constitutional amendments of 2018, which had introduced an unwieldy system of local authorities in the name of decentralisation.
This complex system had two overlapping layers of provincial power. Alongside the provincial government, headed by an elected provincial governor, and known as "the decentralised provincial governance', there were the "bodies of state representation in the province', known as the "State Representation Council', introduced because there are supposedly state functions that cannot be handled by the provincial governor.
This was bitterly contested right from the start. Both inside and outside the ruling Frelimo Party, complaints were raised that the bodies of state representation were unnecessary, merely duplicating the work of the provincial governors. Unelected bodies, it was said, were undermining the elected provincial governors.
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Opposition parties argued that the dual system was a means of Frelimo clinging onto power in the provinces should opposition figures ever be elected as provincial governors.
But elected mayors from Frelimo also saw no reason to surrender power to the State Representation Councils. One of the first voices raised against useless duplication of bodies was that of Eneas Comiche, then Mayor of Maputo, and a senior figure in Frelimo.
Chapo said that eliminating the bodies of state representation in the provinces will save 1,250 million meticais (about 20 million US dollars) from the state budget every year.
He asked the Assembly to insert his bill into the agenda for its current sitting as a matter of urgency, and there is no sign that the Frelimo deputies will oppose this request.
The bill means that the jobs of dozens of officials will be cut from the budget and it is not yet clear how - or indeed whether - they will be compensated.
Chapo said his bill also fulfils a promise he had made in his inauguration speech in January 2025 to restructure the provincial state bodies.
