Will heads roll

By Joseph Hanlon

In China, a few corrupt officials are made examples and executed. In Mozambique, some donors want at least metaphoric heads to role. But Frelimo's history suggests otherwise.

Perhaps the best model of what will happen is an old story. As a condition of IMF support, the then People’s Development Bank (BPD) was privatised in 1997 to the Southern Bank Berhad (SBB) of Malaysia (30%) and Invester (30%), a Mozambican company headed by Octavio Muthemba, former Industry Minister and chair of SPI - Gestão e Investimentos, the Frelimo party holding company. The state kept 40% of the renamed Banco Austral. Through a mix of direct theft and bad loans to themselves and others in the Frelimo elite, the bank was drained of at least $150 million and then handed back to the state in 2001. Antonio Siba-Siba Macuacua, the Bank of Mozambique’s head of banking supervision, was named head and tried to collect on some of the loans and prepare the bank for reprivatisation to ABSA of South Africa (later Barclays). In an unsuccessful attempt to stop the sale, Siba-Siba was murdered at the bank’s offices on 11 August 2001.

It would have been cheaper to pay Renamo

Joseph Hanlon

Recruiting 3000 extra people nominated by parties to the electoral machine will cost $35 million, Budget Director Rogerio Nkomo told the STV television programme “O Pais Economico”. (O Pais 24 March)  Renamo's main interest has also been to be able to give jobs to its members, and its leaders have made clear they want some of the gas and coal money. If a year ago the government had offered $35 million to Renamo, it would probably have led to negotiations and Afonso Dhlakama and his generals might have settled for $100 million. That would have been cheap. The mini-war and subsequent settlement will surely end up costing more than that.  Jh

Source: MOZAMBIQUE 247
News  reports & clippings
26 March 2014

Proposals for New CNE Disappoint By Paul Fauvet

Proposals for amended electoral laws drafted by all three of Mozambique's parliamentary groups insist that political parties should retain a major role on the National Elections Commission (CNE), thus flying in the face of recommendations from civil society bodies that the CNE should be completely depoliticized.

When the parliamentary groups deposited their proposals last week, the spokesperson for the ruling Frelimo Party, Nyeleti Mondlane, said that Frelimo wants a non-partisan CNE, and is open to reducing the number of CNE members.

However, the Frelimo document submitted retains exactly the same structure as the CNE that ran the 2009 general elections - five members appointed by the political parties represented in the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, and eight appointed by civil society bodies.