Jun 17 2011 Mozambique: The dilemma of corruption in African cooperation

• Maputo-001

  https://www.viajesalpasado.com/wp-content/uploads/maputo-001.jpg

  Nothing in this post a fascinating story of my trip. There is a special night where I heard many voices that narrate here. I was used to learn a lot, I hope that you would also serve. He told about it so unworthy of a toll as necessary, as nauseating as essential. A dead end? By Javier Brandoli.

Text and photo: Javier Brandoli

Few times a night I had so much information cooperation in Africa as I acquired my last day in Maputo. The Spanish ambassador was kind enough to invite me to dinner at his home to meet some Spanish aid. I expected to meet with four or five people, but the event brought together more than 30 Spaniards of Mozambique.
Sented me, I listened and learned. Cooperation is always a topic that is convex in the easy to fall into the clichés of Alago and smear. "Today you catch me on a bad day, this is a lie used by politicians ", I said a Catalan cooperating with several years for land. "The government used this issue as an electoral weapon. Not interested. The other, the PP, will do the same ". A colleague tells me encouraged and: "It was a difficult day".
Dinner, excellent, resulted in a final table "illustrious" where messages were blunt. He served as a discussion among themselves, each with its own look. I reproduce the article I wrote in the newspaper El Mundo this meeting. I can not explain what I heard twice I think may be interesting to read this article to understand more what it entails cooperation. I put some comments in italics not explained in the article.
Rule The World
In September last year the outskirts of Maputo, capital of Mozambique, woke taken by the poorest. «Las calles estaban bloqueadas, could not leave. Era una multitudinaria revuelta de gente que quería tomar la ciudad», I explained Alberto Cerezo, deputy chief of the Spanish Embassy.
The reason was the rise of a meticai (0,02 EUR) in the price of transport. The army and police had to forcefully used to appease a spontaneous revolution thousands who threatened to destroy the institutions 0, 02 EUR. There 73 dead. “Nos reconocieron algunas autoridades que se temió perder el control», Spanish Ambassador explains Eduardo Lopez Busquets. (Ie, the country was about to blow up for 0,02 EUR. Think about what it means and the outcome of lives claimed).
Mozambique is a country of sub-Saharan Africa and the second in the whole continent after Morocco receives more money than Spanish cooperation, 50 million (state and regional governments).
A country that for years was the world's poorest (at the time of the civil war that followed independence from Portugal) and that anomaly has a budget, the 48% of its budget comes from cooperation. Ie, almost 1500 of 3000 million dollars with which the country is donated. Spain accounts for about 2,5% the country's budget.
«Mozambique ha sido el país modelo, el lugar donde todo el mundo venía a cooperar por sus buenos resultados», Violet explains Dominguez, General Coordinator of Cooperation AECID (Spanish International Cooperation Agency). Its low economic development, based on subsistence farming, is shown with a very graphic example: «Hay escuelas de tracción animal para el arado, nonmechanical. Hay que enseñar en algunas zonas a arar con mula», José Alberto reminds Toronjo, First Secretary of the Delegation of the European Union. (In the ten-day stay in the country did not see a single latifundio, although there is. There is hardly profitable businesses that make land. There is an equation between hunger, food and land)
But, alarms that something is wrong jumped last year. «In the last financial report has found that the country is growing at a 7% anual y sin embargo la pobreza ha aumentado entre la población», explained in the Embassy. (All recognized that corruption is a part that must be accepted to cooperate in Africa. We must try to be minimal, but inevitably. A rich country with poor people. Who takes it?).
Data are significant: The 80% of the country's exports account for the four companies; the richest man in the country is the president, Emilio Armando Guebuza, an entrepreneur with businesses in almost all sectors of production. «Los mozambiqueños tienen que quejarse menos y trabajar más», I read that he told his countrymen in a newspaper, when he was on his way to the airport. (Another of his mythical phrases I was told in a speech to the people on TV in which he said at one point. "My fellow entrepreneurs must understand ..." The high office he told me I said "no need to say more.").
This situation has led to rethinking being umpteenth cooperation model. «Lo fácil es hacer escuelas que consigan que en cada clase haya 60 children instead of 75, pero no tengo claro que ese sea el mejor camino», Spanish ambassador says. «Creo que aquí se podría apostar por el turismo. Mozambique puede ser el nuevo Cancún de África», says, «una forma de conseguir que haya movimiento económico». (Send Spain a report that there have been a hundred schools led to believe that something has been done, that money is not wasted, but not the solution, Eduardo explained).
It is an idea in a difficult environment. «La cooperación de los países del norte de Europa aprieta mucho. Nearly tells the government how it should govern. The Mediterranean countries work with them more closely together, entendiendo que ellos tienen que decidir también», Violet explains. «Es sorprendente ver llegar a algunas personas y ponerse a dar órdenes de cómo hacer las cosas sin entender nada de la gente con la que están hablando», says Jesus Perez, a Spanish man who spent nine years working in cooperation in the north of the country, Pemba.
Last year, after the election, There was already a threat of withdrawal of the Nordic countries but changed some things. A conviction for thousands of people with foreign money in their only access to a public service. «Este mes se inauguró un nuevo mercado de abastos en Maputo que fue construido íntegramente con dinero de la cooperación española. The Mayor, Frelimo member (ruling party that controls the whole country), told his citizens in the inauguration: When Frelimo promises, Frelimo cumple».
That is the danger; as donors, a kind of mediocrity which knows that someone will work their proper push them. «En el sector médico eso está pasando. Hay una relajación total a la espera de que seamos nosotros los que realicemos el trabajo», says a Spanish aid group Doctors.
What about the future? All persons consulted by this newspaper agrees an amazing analysis: «Ojalá no se encuentren las enormes bolsas de petróleo que se cree que puede haber en el norte del país. Sería una condena para ellos de corrupción como la que ha ocurrido en Angola». Others point to a new basic democratic regeneration. «Es complicado explicar que aquí nadie paga impuestos directos», Toronjo comments. Ie, however no one in Mozambique millionaire who pays income tax is, while entering the country millions of euros of foreign taxpayers who pay in their countries.
The country's future cooperation model is in the air. «Yo soy optimista y creo que con dificultades se está avanzando mucho», Violet says. «Hay cosas que mejorar, but the effort of all, They also included, es evidente», coordinator believes Aecid. Moving is condemn.
«Las instituciones funcionan razonablemente bien», says the Embassy. The question is therefore how to improve support mechanisms. Difficult to answer. «The famous bridge across the mouth of the Zambezi EU did. A connection that allowed the country to join the rest of the country. Not hardly anyone uses it, hay muy poco tráfico», explains Toronjo. No no traffic bridge, without traffic you do not need a bridge. Did the chicken or the egg?

One last thought
I'll tell you a story that I lived in first person for perhaps contextualize the problem of corruption in some countries to cooperation in general and believe that Africa is not a separate world without rules. (Certainly not saying it's me and not always a voice that knows the subject to make categorical statements. I only count what I live or have lived in the first person in some places). In Ecuador, Some years ago, I went as a journalist at a press trip and cooperation. One morning at breakfast I met the woman who privately contributed more money to the project, that was institutional. The vi dejected and asked what's wrong? After several turns to the subject tells me: "I just found out that you have to pay 6.000 chief of the euro area to allow projects to be made. I'm thinking of retiring, I am unwilling to these corruptions. What happens is that if I go off significant funds to the project. I am horrified "... In the end the project stayed and went ahead, with corruption.