SCREW THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE

Afonso Almeida Brandão"

THE The national political situation is so addicted to propaganda and political/partisan fighting that it is difficult to know who is speaking and writing seriously or who is simply carrying out pre-fabricated orders. Any effort to try to think and act with some rationality in the various areas that afflict Mozambicans is met with indifference, or at best with controversy. Let us look at some examples.

ECONOMY

The Minister of Economy, who knows nothing about politics or economics, was told by VM7 that he knows nothing about the portfolio for which he was appointed, although he is trying to “paint” a rosy picture of the country’s economy, which has nothing to do with reality and leaves us wondering whether we are dealing with an enlightened person who sees what no one else sees or a con man. We confess that we are inclined towards the second hypothesis, because it seems impossible to us that anyone could be unaware that national productivity has fallen immensely in these 10 years of Filipe Nyuse’s (mis)government; that public debt continues to grow in absolute terms and interest rates continue to rise; that around 76% of exports as a proportion of GDP puts us in the worst position among CPLP countries (perhaps among PALOP partners) of our size and with small internal markets, which export what they strive to export and which is nothing special; that the per capita income of Mozambicans in purchasing power units continues to fall behind that of all other countries in Southern Africa, if we take into account South Africa and Cape Verde; that some of our companies run the risk of closing their doors for a few months if the situation in Mozambique continues at the impasse it is in; and that it is quite possible that within a few years, they will close completely; that the size of over 90% of the companies in our country is very small, that they are mainly focused on trade, that the overwhelming majority do not export and that many of the businesspeople and workers survive on low qualifications and low productivity; that the few, but still large and medium-sized, national quality companies in Mozambique are crushed by taxes; that the PRR and the other African programmes worth many billions of euros are stuck and some experts in Southern Africa in general and also Mozambicans have long considered them a lost cause. We repeat, how is it possible that the Minister who manages the Economy is unaware of all this?

EDUCATION

A new school year is about to begin with thousands of students without all their teachers. It has been known for years that the recruitment of new teachers is insufficient and that the conditions for access and permanence in education are not attractive, that negotiations between those responsible and the Sector and the Minister have been dragging on for years and date back to the time of Joaquim Chissano — without any plan for a solution and that the teachers' strikes will continue with no end in sight and that the majority of our schools will continue without decent classrooms and with students sitting on mats under the trees. Furthermore, nurseries and pre-schools are in crisis due to a lack of places and quality, and more than half of children, when they enter public education at the age of six or seven, are already marginalized in terms of their knowledge and skills compared to their peers from families with a better standard of living, a marginalization that will last a lifetime, with social and economic consequences for the country. The same question: how is it possible that this current Minister of Education can live with all this without a moment's hesitation, instead spending his time denying reality and creating fantasy solutions, despite having been appointed recently?!...

HEALTH

Unperturbed, news continues to arrive about the difficulties in hospital services, the deaths of Mozambicans resulting from the disorder of the successive People's Demonstrations under the Pretext of the Results of the Presidential Elections of October 2024; the long waits and the constant changes from hospital to hospital, the waiting lists and the ambulances waiting for hours at the hospital doors.

In addition, we have the strikes of Doctors, Nurses, Technicians and Assistants, which continue in the face of the uselessness of the Minister's constant family conversations about the "nonsense" in question that resolves nothing, except to say "nonsense" on television and in the newspapers. In addition, the appointed Minister Hilário Isse makes plans, without yet having the necessary plan for his own functions. The disease of the National Health Service (SNS) in Mozambique has long since passed the endemic mark, but some people do not see it.

JUSTICE

In Mozambique, the justice system is like a huge “pipeline” through which, on one side, new cases enter every day (especially against VM7) and, on the other, almost nothing comes out. Although he has also filed “a handful” of cases, let’s be honest. In other words, the pipe of the Mozambican justice system is getting bigger with each passing day, until it possibly bursts. Until then, investment will flee Mozambique, civil servants will go on strike and the Ministry of Justice will (apparently?) do some errands for the executive to ensure that nothing happens. In the meantime, under the slogan “give justice what is rightfully its own”, and to recall someone we met in Portugal who said more or less the same thing — CORRUPTION is getting bigger and bigger.

HOUSING

Apparently the FRELIMO government has not yet understood the problem of the high price of houses to buy or rent, because the problem is not the lack of houses, on the contrary, at least in Maputo, Beira, Quelimane, Nampula or Tete, where there are thousands of houses on the market. The problem is the high costs, whether due to the supply of land, the high costs of construction, materials and taxes, the latter being among the highest in the CPLP. At the same time, the State owns thousands of abandoned buildings and land, while Mozambique has the worst index of the PALOP countries in terms of the supply of houses for public housing. And let's not even talk about the rent prices that no one monitors. What's more, due to the widespread lack of discipline in which we live, State-owned houses are not properly maintained, tenants stop paying their rent, but nothing happens. Thus, as is obvious, the law of the Government of Daniel Chapo of “More Housing” is insane because it assumes that what cannot be done by the market economy existing in the rest of the CPLP can be done by force.

And the person in charge of the Ministry of Education clearly doesn't realize this and dreams of an economy run by the State, like the old Soviet Union, which was very much in vogue among us. Or does anyone have any doubts?

RAILROAD

Likewise, these (current) (mis)governors under the “gauge” of President Chapo have been thinking about adopting “the existing (?) hypothesis” of the neighboring countries for the so-called modernization of the Railway in Mozambique, isolating our passenger and goods transport from the rest of the country and also beyond its borders, running the risk of losing the possibility of obtaining possible Community funds for the transition to a possible Railway system at the level of Southern Africa that is competitive and with companies possibly competing throughout the countries that are part of the CPLP, perhaps the PALOPs, as well as being environmentally advanced and cheaper. And, on the other hand, it is worth mentioning that no one talks about LAM anymore, the so-called “Flagship Aviation Company” that continues to agonize and wait for a probable solution, somewhere, “behind the Setting Sun”...

In short: this (dis)Government of Daniel Chapo and his inexperienced “Metralhas”, it seems to us that in fact (still) they have not realized this and continue to travel “in the wrong direction”... Or rather, sleeping?! Until when?...

However, what we know is that CHAPO's "policy" for the Country and the People is to "let it go" and screw everyone, of course!...

2025/12/3