POLICY UPDATE Maputo, February 9th, 2020 Number 2 English Prince of Norway, Haakon Magno, with the President of the Republic, Filipe Nyusi NORWEGIAN PRINCE IN NORWAY A visit happening in a time of democatic closure T he Crown Prince of Norway, Haakon Magno, arrives in Mozambique on Tuesday, 11 February, for a two day visit, in response to the invitation extended by Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, when he visited Norway, in November 2018. Initially, it was envisaged that Haakon Magno would land at Maputo International Airport on Wednesday on a Kenyan Airways commercial flight, but he had to cancel his visit to Nairobi due to the death of the former Kenyan President, Daniel arap Moi. On his visit to Mozambique, the Norwegian Crown Prince will be accompanied by two members of the government: the Minister of International Development, Dag Inge Ulstein, and the Minister of Regional Development and Digitalisation, Linda Hofstad Helleland. The delegation includes representatives of economic and business sectors, interested in exploring business opportunities, particularly in the hydrocarbon sector.
Furthermore, the visit of the Norwegian prince is happening at a time when Mozambique is preparing for the phase of production and export of the natural gas from the Rovuma Basin. The most optimistic estimates indicate that the Coral South FLNG project, headed by the Italian company ENI should begin its offshore production in 2022. and 90 million cubic feet a day. As with the other companies selected (Shell Moçambique BV and GL Africa Energy), it is not yet known exactly where Yara International will develop its projects; how much it will invest; how many jobs it will create; and what price it will pay for the gas. However, it is known that, in the initial phase, the gas In fact, in the history of the hydrocarbon sector in should be made available to the downstream commozambique, there must be an obligatory chapter panies for a price no lower than US$ 2.5 GJ. There on the support provided by Norway, a country with are reports that Yara International is threatening to a lengthy experience in the petroleum industry, and drop out of the projects and leave the Mozambiknown as a model in the manacan market because of the gement of revenue. Norwegian prices that the interfurthermore, the visit of high support for the hydrocarbon secnational companies intend the Norwegian prince to charge the downstream tor began in 1981 and was decisive for structuring Mozambique s for the gas. The is happening at a time companies National Hydrocarbon Company Natural Gas Master Plan when Mozambique is envisages that the price (ENH), and for the establishment of the regulatory body, the Natiopreparing for the phase of the Rovuma Basin gas nal Petroleum Institute (INP). intended for the domestic of production and ex- market will be determined In addition to government suport of the natural gas by auction. The Governpport, Norway has also been prehas not yet defined from the Rovuma Ba- ment sent in the hydrocarbon sector the terms of the auction, through oil companies. This is the sin. The most optimistic but it is public that the pricase with Statoil, the largest oil will vary in accordance estimates indicate that ces and gas producer in Norway whiwith each gas field/prothe Coral South FLNG duction project. It is also ch had licences to prospect for hydrocarbons in the Rovuma Baproject, headed by the known that the auction sin. In 2013, the company abanwill fix a price valid for 20 Italian company ENI doned its exploration in northern years. Mozambique, since it had found should begin its offshoneither oil nor gas, and concenin addition to the price, re production in 2022. trated its investments in Angola. the availability of the gas is It changed its name and became another question that conknown as Equinor. cerns the selected companies, including Yara International. The three combut the Norwegian presence in the gas business panies will demand a total of 461.8 million cubic feet will continue through Yara International, one of the a day, an amount larger than the 400 million cubic three companies selected through the internatio- feet of gas destined for the domestic market. Curnal tender launched by the government in 2016 to rently 100 million cubic feet a day are guaranteed choose companies for the design, investment and for the first phase, while 300 million will be allocated development of projects to generate electricity, and depending on firm purchase commitments from the to produce fertilisers and/or liquid fuels for domestic downstream companies. consumption, based on the gas to which Mozambique is entitled from the Rovuma Basin projects. Despite its strategic importance, the Rovuma gas does not seem to be the main reason for the viyara International forecasts that it will produce be- sit by the Norwegian prince. The departure of the tween 1.2 and 1.3 million tonnes a year of fertilizer Norwegian oil company Statoil in 2013 suggests (ammonia and urea) and generate between 30 and that Norway s interests in the oil and gas sector are 50 MW of electricity. The two projects will demand tending to operate within the logic of the market, an estimated quantity of natural gas of between 80 without much influence from political corridors. 2 POLICY UPDATE I www.cddmoz.org
Norwegian Pension Fund is one of Credit Suisse s main investors Welcome, Prince Haakon Magno, to the country of hidden debts Norway is one of the Programme Aid Partners, a group of countries and institutions which used to provide direct financial support to the State Budget. However, the group decided to suspend Direct Budget Support in 2016, following the scandal of the hidden debts. The Norwegian Crown Prince is coming to Maputo at a time when the European Union is considering resuming Direct Budget Support as from 2021. Everything indicates that the idea is to make the resumption of that form of aid coincide with the year in which a new cycle of European Union financing for Mozambique begins and which should extend until 2027. Naturally the resumption of Budget Support is conditional on advances in transparency, good management of the public accounts and the strengthening of state institutions, as the European Union ambassador to Mozambique, Sánchez-Bene- dito Gaspar, cited by Lusa, explained. Direct Budget Support is an appropriate instrument of development aid, because it is in line with the Paris Declaration on the Effectiveness of Development Aid; the Accra Action Agenda, and the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. But corruption and authoritarianism have led to the suspension of Direct Budget Support in Mozambique. While some argue that Direct Budget Support is a thing of the past, which will never be implemented again, there are those who call for the return of this form of aid as a way of buying the good will and dialogue with the government. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has put out feelers in this regard, although it was the standard bearer for cutting financial aid in 2016. Even so, the enthusiasm of Mozambique s partners www.cddmoz.org I POLICY UPDATE 3
for a return to Direct Budget Support seems insignificant due to the lack of progress in following up the recommendations of the Kroll audit report on the hidden debts. One of the central points concerns the lack of transparency over the real beneficiaries of the 500 million dollars which Kroll found were not justified. During the visit which Filipe Nyusi made to Norway in November 2018, it was expected that the matter of the hidden debts would dominate the agenda, but everything was done to avoid embarrassing the President of the Republic. Also related to the hidden debts, Mozambican civil society organisations, through the Budget Monitoring Forum (FMO), have been putting pressure on the Norwegian authorities, particularly the Pension Fund, to withdraw their investments from Credit Suisse as a way of holding the bank responsible. Managed by the Norwegian Central Bank, the Pensions Fund is one of the main investors in Credit Suisse, the bank that was complicit in the illegal and fraudulent loans to Mozambique. In several meetings with the FMO, in Oslo, the Pensions Fund said it had a limited decision-making power, and the most it could do was recommend that the Central Bank take decisions. However, it seems that political questions have blocked the Norwegian Central Bank from holding Credit Suisse responsible for its involvement as an accomplice in the financial scandal which has thrust millions of Mozambicans still further into poverty. A further allegation is that the Pensions Fund would have more strength to act against Credit Suisse if the scandal of the hidden debts had a direct link with the violation of human rights. For the CDD, there is indeed a direct link between the hidden debts and human rights violations, in that it became impossible for the Mozambican state to provide basic and essential services to the public notably due to the shortage of medicines in the hospitals and the precarious conditions of care. Many patients did not survive due to the shortage of medicines in the public hospitals and the extremely poor services provided by badly paid professionals. Norway congratulates Nyusi on his re-election a few days prior to the royal visit The visit of Haakon Magno is the first by a leading State dignitary since Filipe Nyusi was invested for his second term of office on 15 January. And to create a good political environment during the visit, the Norwegian Prime Minister has congratulated Nyusi for his re-election as President of the Republic. In her message sent in early February, Erna Solberg described Mozambique as an important partner of Norway, with bilateral relations dating from the time of the struggle for Mozambican independence. We have solid traditions of cooperation in various sectors and we share interests in the bilateral and multilateral spheres, wrote the Norwegian Prime Minister in the message sent two weeks after Nyusi had taken office as President of the Republic. This late congratulation for victory may mean this is a message of discomfort from the Oslo government at the way the elections took place. Filipe Nyusi was re-elected in an election that was indisputably 4 POLICY UPDATE I www.cddmoz.org fraudulent and marked by serious human rights violations. Manipulation of the voter registration data, notably through the registration of 300,000 ghost voters in Gaza, the exclusion of opposition candidates and others supported by civic associations and groups of voters; manipulation of the election bodies and of the police to serve the interests of Frelimo; movements of armoured vehicles and heavily armed police to intimidate voters on election day; detention of opposition polling station monitors, particularly in Gaza; lack of accreditation of independent observers to allow corruption of the results (more than 3,000 observers from the CDD, from the Episcopal Justice and Peace Commission and from the Catholic Church could not observe the election due to lack of credentials); and ballot box stuffing were the main problems which affected the credibility and justice of the elections held on 15 October 2019. The evidence of fraud was in plain sight and, for the first time in history, the electoral bodies themselves
Mozambican President with the Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg did not have the courage to describe the elections as free, fair and transparent. Democracy is a universal principle, and it was seriously injured on the October 2019 elections. Hence it is hard to understand what the Oslo government is congratulating in the letter sent to Filipe Nyusi. But the most serious violation of human rights during the elections was the assassination of the activist Anastácio Matavele, the executive director of the Forum of Gaza Non-Governmental Organisations (FONGA). Anastácio Matavele was murdered a week before voting day by agents of special units of the Mozambican police force, at a time when he was coordinating the activities of the Civil Society Learning and Training Centre (CESC). The murder was planned and coordinated within state institutions and carried out by police agents, which shows that this was a State crime. Furthermore, two and a half months after the assassination, the General Command of the Police promoted three of the five agents who killed Anastácio Matavele, thus honouring a promise made to them before the heinous crime. Although the police claim that the dispatches promoting the three agents (two awaiting trial in jail, and one on the run) have been revoked, the CDD believes that the General Command of the Police should publicly present these dispatches revoking the promotions and explain the exact date on which they were issued. It is curious that the President of the Republic, in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Defence and Security Forces, has never publicly condemned or even regretted the assassination of a social activist by members of the police force. This strengthens the conviction of the CDD that the murder of Anastácio Matavele is a matter that should be taken to international mechanisms that defend human rights so that the Mozambican state can be www.cddmoz.org I POLICY UPDATE 5
held responsible for the actions of its agents. The CDD is therefore working with the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network (SAHRDAN) to consolidate the initiative of submitting the Anastácio Matavele case to the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights. In fact, the murder of Anastácio Matavele is not an isolated case: Nyusi s first term of office was marked by assassinations, kidnappings and torture of academics, political analysts and journalists. It is enough to recall the murder of Professor Gilles Cistac in March 2015; the kidnapping and shooting of Associate Professor Jaime Macuane in May 2016; the kidnapping and torture of Ericino de Salema in March 2018; and most recently (31 December 2019) the assault and attempted kidnapping of Matias Guente, journalist and editor of Canal de Moçambique, the independent weekly most critical of the governance of Filipe Nyusi. The selection of the victims clearly shows that the objective is to use death squads to silence dissident voices, to repress different ways of thinking, and to ostracise those who dare to interrogate the govern- ment critically. The Norwegian Crown Prince will find Mozambique in this environment of a shutdown of democratic space. Hence there is a great interest in knowing whether this visit will go beyond the traditional banquets and pretty photographs of the occasion. That is, whether, on the one hand, Haakon Magno will ask Filipe Nyusi the right questions about the violations of human rights; about good governance, including holding senior leaders of Frelimo responsible for the treacherous corruption which has sunk the country; and whether, on the other hand, Filipe Nyusi will ask the right questions to Haakon Magno about the necessary and urgent divestment of the Norwegian Pensions Fund from Credit Suisse, and helping Mozambique to obtain compensation from Credit Suisse for the damage caused. After the acclaimed ambassador Mette Masst, Norway has sent to Maputo S.E. Aud Marit Wiig, a respected and prestigious diplomat, from whom one expects catalysing action of respect for the universal principles of human rights in Mozambique. EDITORIAL INFORMATION Property: Director: Editor: Autor: CDD Centro para a Democracia e Desenvolvimento Prof. Adriano Nuvunga João Nhabanga Tinga João Nhabanga Tinga Team: Layout: João Nhabanga Tinga, Agostinho Machava, Ilídio Nhantumbo, Denise Cruz, Isabel Macamo. CDD Address: Rua Eça de Queiroz, nº 45, Bairro da Coop, Cidade de Maputo - Moçambique Telefone: 21 41 83 36 PROGRAMMATIC PARTNER Comissão Episcopal de Justiça e Paz, Igreja Católica CDD_moz E-mail: info@cddmoz.org Website: http://www.cddmoz.org FINANCING PARTNERS