District Fund in Nampula Created Almost 60,000 Jobs

31 May 2011

Maputo — Nampula (Mozambique), 31 May (AIM) – Since its introduction by the Mozambican government in 2006, the District Development Fund (FDD) has created 58,022 jobs in the northern province of Nampula, according to the Provincial Governor, Felismino Tocoli.

Giving a report on Monday to President Armando Guebuza, who is on a working visit to Nampula as part of his “open and inclusive presidency”, Tocoli said that the FDD had financed 9,320 development projects. 3,297 of these were agricultural projects and 3,081 were in trade (essentially the opening of rural shops).

In 2010, the FDD had planned to benefit 20 districts with a total budget of 175.8 million meticais (about 5.9 million US dollars). The fund actually disbursed 172.4 million meticais, 98 per cent of the figure initially planned, in financing 2,607 projects to produce food and generate income.

But when it comes to repaying loans from the FDD, the picture is desolate. Tocoli could take some comfort from the fact that repayments in 2010, at 6.9 million meticais, were higher than the previous year’s figure of 5.1 million.

The total repaid in Nampula, up to the end of 2010, was 28.2 million meticais – which is just 3.5 per cent of the total amount lent, which was 814.6 million meticais.

In the first quarter of 2011, only 66.8 million meticais was lent, out of a target figure of 157.7 million. This sum financed 430 projects – Tocoli said that 121 of these were for food production, and 309 for income generation. He claimed that these projects created 3,127 jobs.

To improve the use of the FDD, four training sessions were held – in Malema, Mozambique Island, Angoche and Eratri districts – benefitting 387 people from all of Nampula’s 21 districts. These included District Permanent Secretaries, Heads of District Technical Teams, members of the local Consultative Councils (which decide on the projects to be funded from the FDD), and some of the beneficiaries themselves.

The FDD is still referred to colloquially as “the seven million”, since it started as an allocation of seven million meticais from the central state budget to each of the 128 districts. Since then the amount has increased, and it is no longer the same for every district (factors such as the population and area of the districts are now taken into account).

The original idea was that this should be a revolving fund – as the beneficiaries repaid the money, so it would be lent out again to new projects. But the low level of repayments makes this impossible.

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