13 April 2011
Jangamo — Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Tuesday expressed optimism that the southern province of Inhambane can continue to increase agricultural production.
President Guebuza was speaking during a special sitting of the provincial government in the town of Jangamo. He said that one of the main challenges facing the country is to develop small and medium scale industry for processing agricultural goods.
“The potential of agricultural production is large. Our challenge now is to conserve those goods” said the Head of State, stressing the importance of establishing a processing industry.
After analysing a report presented by Agostinho Trinta, the Governor of Inhambane province, President Guebuza welcomed the fact that total production in the province has greatly increased, and stated that “this is a good sign”.
According to the Governor’s report, total production last year grew by 16.4 per cent. Agriculture, livestock and forestry accounted for 37 per cent of the total, followed by mining with 26 per cent. Transport and communications accounted for 13 per cent of the total, with fishing and tourism accounting for seven per cent each.
Despite efforts to expand the electricity network into suburban and rural areas, the energy sector contributed only one per cent, the same amount as water. However, efforts to expand the electricity network resulted in 4,951 new consumers.
During 2010, according to the report, fish production reached 8,526 tonnes against a target of 7,443 tonnes.
In the mining sector 665,000 cubic metres or clay, limestone and sand were mined.
The volume of raw coconut oil, copra pulp and coconut fibre, which are traditional exports from the province, grew by 0.9 per cent.
Raw coconut oil increased to 4,300 tonnes and coconut fibre to 2,900 tonnes. However, copra pulp fell to from 2,200 tonnes to 1,900 tonnes last year.
The figures given in the report led President Guebuza to state that Inhambane province is on track.
Shortly afterwards, the President held a rally where he reiterated that the people of Inhambane have the capacity to produce food.
Inhambane is a large producer of fruit, and President Guebuza said that it is a major preoccupation of the government to conserve this fruit and other agricultural products.
In this context, he urged people to make use of the District Development Fund, colloquially known as “the seven million”, to finance the creation of small scale food processing industries.
“The seven million are for increasing food production. If we make good use of the seven million we can do wonders”, said President Guebuza.
As with other working visits during his “open and inclusive presidency”, President Guebuza gave local people at the rally the opportunity to present him with their main concerns.
People complained that crime was on the increase, especially in the administrative post of Cumbana, located along the country’s north-south EN1 highway, and called for the authorities to take more action. The locals told the President about the poor performance of the police.
They also told the President about the poor quality of the electricity supply and its slow expansion.
There were calls for the building of a pre-university school, the opening of a technical college and a school for arts and crafts. There were also demands for improvements to access roads.
On Wednesday President Guebuza moved on to the district of Mabote, in the north of the province.
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