The Minister of Economy and Finance, Max Tonela, tells Lusa that the lack of outcome in the hidden debts trial in Maputo cannot condition the acceptance of loans for necessary reforms in the country.
“We are making reforms that are necessary to improve the macroeconomic framework of the country and also create conditions for a better capacity of the private sector to do business and investments in Mozambique, create conditions for us to have a better capacity to mobilize financing for the Economy, which included financing to the private sector,” Tonela said in an interview with Lusa at the Mozambican Embassy in Washington.
According to the governor, the factors that justify these reforms “have nothing to do” with the fact that there is still no outcome to the hidden debts trial in Maputo, nor to the challenges in London.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced last month that it has reached an agreement with Mozambique to implement an Extended Fund Program (EFF) through 2025, disbursing financial aid for the first time since the hidden debts scandal.
“The IMF team has reached a technical agreement with the Mozambican authorities for a three-year program supported by a PFA in the amount of $470 million,” announced IMF country team leader Alvaro Piris.
This is the first time the Fund has financed Mozambique since the disclosure of the so-called hidden debts scandal in 2016, although there has been occasional financial aid following specific disasters, such as the covid-19 pandemic or cyclones Kenneth and Idai in 2019.
The IMF was one of several international partners that suspended financial aid following the disclosure of loans from public companies that had not been announced either to parliament or to international donors, a process known as the hidden debts scandal and which involved several members of the executive then led by Armando Guebuza and in which the current President was Minister of Defense, the area in which the public companies that contracted the hidden loans operated.
Tonela is in the US capital to participate in the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank, stating that in all meetings he had the “opportunity to reiterate the path that his Government intends to pursue to carry out reforms aimed at boosting the Mozambican economy, correcting distortions and also improving management capacity.
Among the various meetings he had during the week, the minister highlighted the meetings with representatives of the US Government, particularly the Treasury Department and State Department.
“We noted with satisfaction that we received very positive answers, a very positive feedback in all these meetings, as well as they showed availability to work with the Government in the search for additional resources for the financing of our development programs,” detailed the governor.
According to Max Tonela, the reforms that his executive is developing are oriented to promote and improve good governance, both overall state and corporate, to attract domestic and foreign investments, but also to bring the debt to “more sustainable levels”.
Asked what has changed so that a scandal like the 2016 hidden debts scandal does not happen again, Max Tonela said that a set of changes in the regulatory framework has been adopted, among others, that allows for better control and monitoring of issues such as conflicts of interest of service providers to the state, as well as the fight against money laundering has been intensified.
“The perspective of having mechanisms of balancing and counter-balancing in our governance process has changed, to allow that all decisions of this nature, which generate indebtedness, go through the opinion processes of entities, such as the Attorney General’s Office, for example, before their approval or implementation,” he added.
In a balance of this year’s edition of the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, the Mozambican minister stressed that their focus was on finding ways to mobilize resources for the country.
“Resources to enable the state to meet challenges caused by various factors, some external, such as the effects of climate change, which have resulted in an increase in the regularity and intensity of cyclones that have destroyed infrastructure, caused deaths, and represent additional pressure on the state budget,” he said, adding that managing and mobilizing resources to address terrorist action in Cabo Delgado was also one of his focuses.
