The Mozambican Prime Minister, Adriano Maleiane, revealed that the government still does not have all the funds for the economic restructuring and reconstruction of the districts largely destroyed by attacks of rebels linked to the Islamic State in Cabo Delgado province, one year after the launch of the initiative.
This recognition comes as a study reveals that several districts still lack basic services, such as schools and hospitals, and the population lives off the collection and sale of scrap metal, vehicles, and armored cars.
The Reconstruction Plan for Cabo Delgado, which should last three years and was approved more than a year ago by the Council of Ministers, will cost 300 million US dollars and foresees, besides guaranteeing the security of the area, creating means of subsidence for displaced people who intend to return to their areas of origin, and reestablishing administrative and commercial activities in the districts severely affected by terrorism.
Adriano Maleiane who visited the province in the last four days acknowledged that the reinstallation of administrative services is following slow steps and that the economy continues to be boosted by local traders and at own risk, in districts that have already started to receive back thousands of displaced people.
“The [reconstruction] program has an underlying funding, what is happening is that the pace of making these funds available that was foreseen, is not being accompanied with the urgency on the ground,” Adriano Maleiane told journalists in Pemba, stressing that minimal services are being re-established, although some are functioning precariously.
The province of Cabo Delgado has the largest and richest liquefied natural gas project in Africa, and since October 2017 it has been plagued by attacks from an armed group calling itself al-Shabab (Arabic for ‘the youth’ or ‘the boys’) that began a few years ago to gain sympathy from the Islamic State.
To face this insurgency, the government got support from Rwanda and countries of the Southern African Development Community, which sent thousands of troops to help the Mozambican army.