Mozambican former president defends finance freedom for efficient governance in Africa

Mozambique former president Joaquim Chissano said in Maputo Friday that African countries should mobilize their own resources and rely less on external donors so that they can properly execute their governance plan.

Speaking to academics, magistrates, politicians and the public in general in a lecturer under the theme Peace and Security in Southern Africa, Chissano believes that external funds come with conditions and that consequently limits the beneficiary countries to implement their governance plan in their own perspective.

"African countries continue failing because we still don't believe in our strengths and in our own resources. We have to mobilize our own resources and stop relying on others," said Chissano.

As an example, he picked the process under which elections are held in many African countries whereby a great deal of them does not own resources to organize their elections.

"Inevitable those that fund the process dictate the rules under which the elections process should be held," added Chissano.

The former president regretted that due to lack of resources African countries are forced to follow other rules and shared an example that he experienced while he was the president of Mozambique.

"When I was a president, an ambassador approached me and said that his country had injected funds to the elections and that they should dictate how the process should run. That was an offence. It should be and it must be Mozambicans saying how they want the process to go," said Chissano.

In the view of Chissano, this is not a problem of members of the Southern African Development Community alone, but also members of the African Union. They should struggle to fund their elections processes and end up relying on external donors.

"That is why I strongly believe that we need to mobilize our own resources so that we can draw the path of our process," reiterated Chissano. Endit