Cited by the Mozambican media, Custódio Nguetana said that Mozambique was not in a position to “get hold of the money and keep it in a bank,” to create a Sovereign Fund or Macro-economic Stabilisation Fund, or to finance a development bank.
Creating these funds or a development bank was a proposal made recently by Mozambique’s Tributary Authority at a press conference to explain the formula used to calculate the tax applied to the sale by Italian group ENI of a stake in an oil block in the Rovuma basin to the China National Petroleum Corporation.
After this sale, the Italian group agreed to pay the Mozambican authorities US$400 million in cash and spend US$130 million on building a thermal power plant in the north of the country.
Nguetane said that Mozambicans should first “solve the country’s real problems, either from an infrastructure point of view, or from a social point of view,” and added that when there “are no longer problems with health, education etc., then the money can be put in the bank.”
Source: Macauhub News Agency. For more information, click here.
