Renamo Accused of ‘Disinformation’ About Subsidies

16 May 2011

Maputo — Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang on Monday accused a parliamentary deputy of the former rebel movement Renamo, Jose Samo Gudo, of spreading disinformation about the subsidised food basket for the urban poor which the government plans to introduce in July.

Renamo’s main argument against the amended 2011 state budget, which the government introduced into the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on Monday, is that the food basket is just an unsustainable political gesture.

Samo Gudo claimed that the 335.6 million meticais allocated to this subsidy is grossly insufficient. He claimed that the subsidy is 840 meticais a month, and that this could not possibly be paid to the 1.8 million beneficiaries estimated by the government for the six months that the subsidy will be in effect this year.

To pay this sum, Samo Gudo, said the government would need to spend over a billion meticais.

In fact, the cost would be over nine billion meticais – but Samo Gudo’s mathematics are irrelevant because his assumptions are wrong.

Accusing him of deliberate disinformation, Chang said the government has no intention of giving the food to anyone. “The food basket is not an offer”, he stressed. “The government is not giving it away. The 840 meticais is the price the beneficiaries will pay”.

840 meticais was a reference price for the basket of food sufficient to meet daily calorific needs. The government would pay the difference between this reference price and the market price.

Clearly the government is hoping that this difference will not be very large. 335.6 million meticais spent on 1.8 million people over six months is an average of just 31 meticais per person per month.

But the budget law contains a clause allowing the government to increase this sum if food prices rise more than expected, and the subsidy turns out to be considerably more than 335.6 million meticais.

Samo Gudo sneered at a subsidy of one metical a day as derisory. But that is not how the poor view their money. For people on an income of less than 2,500 meticais a month (the group at whom the food basket is aimed), every metical counts. And an increase of one metical in the price of a loaf of bread was the main cause of the riots that shook Maputo and Matola on 1 and 2 September last year.

Samo Gudo also objected to the government registration of the urban poor. Anyone who regards their household as poor enough to qualify for subsidised food must register, and must provide proof of identity, proof of income, a residence certificate, and a tax number. Renamo regarded such procedures as bureaucratic and irrelevant.

Chang retorted that 1.8 million was an indicative number drawn from the recent survey on household budgets by the National Statistics Institute (INE). Registration was absolutely essential to determine precisely who was eligible for the subsidised food.

As for the residence certificate, Chang told reporters that this was “a protective mechanism” to ensure that only people living in the 11 cities covered by the subsidy would receive it.

When the amended budget came to a vote, it passed with the 162 deputies of the majority Frelimo Party voting in favour, and 48 deputies from Renamo and the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) voting against.

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