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Africa Policy E-Journalgiven the difficulty in maintaining up-to-date links in old files. However, we hope they may still provide leads for your research. Mozambique: Recent Documents, 2 Date Distributed (ymd): 951206 MOZAMBIQUE PEACE PROCESS BULLETIN Excerpts from Issue 16 - December 1995 Edited by Joseph Hanlon. Published by AWEPA, the European Parliamentarians for Southern Africa, Prins Hendrikkade 48, 1012 AC Amsterdam, Netherlands. Tel: (31) 20 626 66 39; Fax: (31) 20 622 01 30; e-mail: awepa@antenna.nl. Material may be freely reprinted. The following are excerpts from a much longer document, with some sections rearranged for greater readability. For a complete copy by e-mail (50K+ total), contact jhanlon@open.ac.uk. For the printed version contact AWEPA at the address above. The AWEPA office in Maputo is moving to: Rua Licenciado Coutinho 77 (CP 2648) e-mail: awepa@awepa.uem.mz Tel +258 (1) 41 86 03 Fax +258 (1) 41 86 04. =============================================== (continued from part 1) Excerpts on Parliament: HOME OF CONSENSUS In sharp contrast to the tensions between the parties outside and the sharp disputes that marked the first parliamentary session last December, consensus is now the word inside parliament. Cooperation is close between parties and between MPs. Few issues actually come to a vote; both sides have withdrawn bills which would otherwise have been defeated. The standing committees largely work by consensus. This has led to divisions and some tensions between the two parliamentary parties and their respective non-parliamentary leaderships. One Frelimo MP complained that the government still thinks in a one-party way and can simply tell Frelimo MPs what to do, while the MPs themselves are now thinking in a multi-party way. "We are changing because we work with Renamo and influence each other," the MP commented. Helder Muteia, the Frelimo chair of the Agriculture and Regional Development Committee, said: "We are not just legislators; we have to monitor the government and keep a critical distance from it. We want to be constructive critics and the government must react to comment from outside." ... Under the new standing orders, the government comes to parliament to answer questions three times in each session. Frelimo's first questions to its own government were pointed, raising issues which were the subject of widespread public discussion: privatisation and who benefits, the soaring cost of living, criminality and drugs, IMF negotiations, and education (especially corruption). As Savana's headline said: "This week, MPs remembered the people." Frelimo decentralised the drafting of its questions. Each of the 11 provincial groups of Frelimo MPs meets weekly during the session, and each group was told to draft a question. The heads of the 11 groups then met to combine the different questions into a shorter set. MPs showed themselves not quite aware of how to use the question system, however. Neither Renamo nor the UD submitted their questions in time, and Renamo's two "questions" were actually statements. The government was only prepared to answer the last two of the Frelimo questions at its first questions time. But the education replies provoked such a lengthy debate - 40 MPs asked to speak and there was extensive criticism of the education system by Renamo - that there was no time for Finance Minister Tomas Salomao to answer the IMF question. .................. RAISING HOT ISSUES Privatisations and agricultural marketing are two of the hot issues discussed by committees. The Economic Activities Committee has been openly critical of the privatisation programme, warning that there has been "a lack of transparency", there has been a failure to give preference to Mozambicans, workers are not always being given the 20% share they should get, and in some cases people who have won the bidding for companies have not kept the companies running and have even "turned factories into warehouses". Committee chair Francisco has taken a particular interest in the Beira corridor and its railway and port, which he says shows that state companies can be profitable - "they prove that you don't need to privatise to end inefficiency and make a profit." The Committee also warns of the "danger of the extinction of the national textile industry." Both the Economic Activities and Agriculture committees have looked at agricultural marketing and warned that the (IMF-imposed) credit squeeze means that traders are unable to buy peasant produced maize and oher products. The Agriculture Committee warns that traders are paying peasants less than the official minimum price for maize. It also calls for a new agricultural finance system. Excerpts on Donor Politics: OPPOSITION TO IMF Donor representatives in Maputo issued an unprecedented statement attacking IMF policies. The issue came to a head during the visit of an International Monetary Fund official, Sergio Leite. During a 23 September televised press conference, Leite took the unusual step of publicly criticising a 37.5% increase in the minimum wage that had just been agreed in three-way talks between government, industry and labour. Although only half the rate of inflation and leading to a minimum wage of less than US$ 1 per day, Leite called the increase "excessive" and said it was being given too soon. He repeated his view during a 26 September meeting with donors, which was reported in detail the following day in the independent daily MediaFax. Leite told donors that Mozambique had made "great efforts", including cutting government spending even more than planned, and had satisfied most of the conditions imposed by the IMF. Nevertheless, inflation was still rising too rapidly, and this required further cuts in credit and spending; thus he opposed the rise in the minimum wage. Further, Leite warned that the IMF might be forced to declare Mozambique "off-track", which would have had automatic and disastrous consequences. Some aid would stop automatically, and Mozambique would not be allowed to negotiate further debt reductions later this year. Finance Minister Tomas Salomao was summoned to Washington for further negotiations. This caused widespread concern among donors in Maputo, leading to a statement issued on 6 October and sent to the IMF and World Bank, as well as to the government. The statement said "the donor community is impressed with the commitment made by the new government's economic team to implement an ambitious reform agenda. A disruption in financial support could jeopardize further progress." It also appealed, in technical language, for the programme not to be declared off-track. And in an unusually open criticism of IMF policy, it continued: "While we endorse the demand management approach of the IMF and the government to combat inflation, we are deeply concerned about the lack of a supply response in the Mozambican economy." Decoded, this means: making the world's poorest country even poorer in order to reduce demand will not rebuild a war-torn economy; something must also be done to increase production. In the end, the statement was signed by only five donor ambassadors or representatives in Maputo, but they were key ones: United States, European Union, United Nations, Netherlands, and Switzerland. Nordic donors helped draft the statement, but were stopped from signing at the last minute by their capitals, who felt statements about the IMF should not come from ambassadors in Maputo; privately, however, they made clear their continued support for the statement. One donor said: "inflation cannot be fought simply by monetary and fiscal measures - by controlling the money supply and government spending - as the IMF believes. The IMF doesn't understand the Mozambican economy; it is using the wrong model." The statement worked. Soon after it was released, the government confirmed the increase in the minimum wage. The IMF did not declare Mozambique off-track, and Salomao later said this was partly due to the donor statement. But the price was high. The donor statement specifically called on government to "increase budgetary allocations to education and health" but Salomao was forced to promise the IMF further cuts in health and education spending. Mozambique must also cut back on donor-funded rebuilding of war damaged infrastructure, such as roads, because this spending is considered by the IMF to be inflationary. And government must put aside money to pay debts to Russia, even though there is no repayment agreement with Russia and no demand for payment. The IMF made no concessions on the supply side. Donors expect to press this when the IMF team returns to Maputo in early December. ----- QUOTES "In contrast to what we would like to believe, the rulers of Africa are not the various African states. ... The rulers of Africa and of Mozambique are the World Bank and Internatioal Monetary Fund. ... Their programme is to integrate Africa into a system of economic neo-colonialism which takes no account of the needs of people. What counts is the free market; its god is money." Nova Vida (November 1995), published by the Mozambican Catholic Church "The IMF is not a development agency, it is an audit agency. You cannot leave development to the auditors. Development is much more complex - you need a vision." Abdul Magid Osman, former Finance Minister CG DELAYED The World Bank-convened donor Consultative Group (CG) meeting in Paris which normally occurs in December has still not been scheduled. The 1994 meeting had been delayed until 14-15 March 1995, because of the elections. Now the 1995 meeting will be delayed until March 1996 or even later. The more supportive donors see this as helpful to the government - it has enough donor funds committed until mid-1996, and this will allow government more space to meet the targets it committed itself to in March. They also want to allow government to present a budget to parliament at this session, before it is given to donors at the CG; although they admit government will still need to negotiate the budget with donors before going to parliament, some donors feel that democratisation requires that parliament be allowed at least a token say in the budget. Donors now accept that they forced government to commit itself to an over-ambitious programme at the March 1995 CG. The 6 October donor statement also called for the government "to focus its resources on a few key areas which, taken together, will enhance the chances for economic recovery." There must be defined "a more limited set of priorities within the existing policy ramework." The statement went on to identify for government the four economic priority areas on which expected action is demanded before the CG: "+ tax and custom reform, + financial sector reform, + private sector development, and + combating corruption." Roberto Chavez, the World Bank representative in Mozambique, in a Domingo (5 November) interview, said that in all four areas "things are moving very well." Democratisation and decentralisation will be the non- economic priority areas for the CG. (end of excerpts from Peace Process Bulletin) ********************************************************** Additional note: As the following news item from the Mozambique Information Agency indicates, Bulletin editor Joseph Hanlon has long been a critic of the impact of AID in Mozambique, and during the peace process the Bulletin on occasion expressed strong criticism of positions taken by U.S. Ambassador Dennis Jett. US EMBASSY BANS US JOURNALIST Maputo, 6 Nov (AIM) - The United States embassy in Maputo has put a blanket ban on any of its staff talking to US journalist and writer on Mozambique, Joseph Hanlon. Hanlon was the BBC correspondent in Maputo in the early 1980s. He has written several books on Mozambique, including +The Revolution under fire+, and a devastating exposure of the aid industry entitled +Mozambique: Who Calls the Shots?+. In recent years he has covered in detail implementation of the 1992 peace accord between the government and the Renamo rebels. He has edited the +Peace Process Bulletin+, put out by AWEPA (Association of European Parliamentarians for Southern Africa). These credentials make Hanlon the best informed US journalist on Mozambique. But apparently the US embassy does not like his unashamedly left-wing politics. Arriving for one of his regular visits to Maputo, Hanlon requested, as he has done many times in the past, interviews with US embassy staff. But press attache Adrienne O'Neal told him that nobody had any time to talk to him. +I informed her that the embassy has been talking to me for the past 15 years+, Hanlon told AIM. +So I asked her to go back to a higher authority+. On 25 October Hanlon spoke to O'Neal again. She told him: +I have talked to people here in the embassy and explained your concern and they say that nobody in the US embassy or at USAID will have time to talk to you+. When Hanlon asked why this ban had been slapped on him, O'Neal said she did not have to give any reasons. She did however add +There is a history to this+ - which might indicate that somebody in the embassy has taken a dislike to something Hanlon has written. Not O'Neal herself, though - she claimed never to have read the +Peace Process Bulletin+ or any of Hanlon's books. Hanlon is puzzled by the ban. He never had any problem in speaking to US officials during the pacification and election periods, even though what he wrote was frequently critical of US policy towards Mozambique. +It's a bit absurd that the US embassy is prepared to ban all of its staff from speaking to the person who must be the most prominent US writer on Mozambique+, Hanlon told AIM. +Had the Mozambican government done this to me, the American embassy would have raised hell, and claimed that freedom of the press was under threat+, he pointed out. +For a country that supposedly believes in freedom of information, the embassy's position is grotesque+, added Hanlon. Hanlon could not imagine what had provoked the ban - but the last substantial article of his that appeared in the Mozambican press (in the independent newsheet +Mediafax+) concerned corruption in the United States. Hanlon pointed out that corruption, far from being a third world phenomenon, was endemic in the United States, and made the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that USAID should send experts to teach Mozambicans how to organise and regulate corruption. +Perhaps Mozambicans aren't supposed to know that there is corruption in the United States+, remarked Hanlon. Although he is a US citizen, Hanlon prefers to live in Britain where he has permanent resident status. +I really do find Britain a freer country than the US+, he said. It will be interesting to see whether the embassy's flagrant denial of freedom of information will figure in the next US State Department's report on human rights in Mozambique. (AIM)
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