Standard Bank's chief economist in Mozambique, Fáusio Mussá, considers the economic growth forecast for the country "very little" and hopes that the government will implement reforms that will promote "a fresh start“.
The latest forecasts that he outlined point to a growth of 3.7% per year until 2025, in other words, "it is very little," he said in an interview with Lusa, taking into account that the country has about 30 million inhabitants, most of them in extreme poverty.
"We have an example from the recent past where Mozambique was growing at an annual average of 7%, for more than a decade," and yet "poverty has hardly been reduced."
According to the analyst, "clearly, in the coming years it will be difficult to see a substantial increase in employment with the type of investments that Mozambique expects to receive," mega-projects with great impact on the economy, but few jobs, which will only multiply with the development of the rest of the value chain, with small and medium enterprises.
"It's going to take a lot longer for economic growth to actually start producing more inclusion, less poverty," he noted.
The time it will take may be shorter if there are reforms that help to better manage public finances - as planned with the new financial support program from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"I believe that Mozambique is on the verge of a new beginning, but that means looking to the future with a lot of courage, because the challenges are very big," he said.
For Fáusio Mussá, "there is a question of behavior here that has to change and obviously the focus of the reforms" that have been presented "is clearly on improving governance and fighting corruption.
"Now, it's one thing for us to have this on paper, it's another thing to actually have change, and I am encouraged by clear signs that the intention is to move towards that change," he noted.
Questioned about what these signs are, Fáusio Mussá exemplified with the report released last week in which the government itself recognizes its mistakes: the misapplication of 30 million euros from donors (including the International Monetary Fund, IMF, which this year resumes financial programs with Maputo) to combat covid-19.
"It is a document in which the government has identified a series of anomalies so that this does not happen again in the future" and in other dossiers "there are concrete measures. There are already lawsuits in court, there are ongoing trials," as in the case of hidden debts, he pointed out.
"There are a number of elements that allow me to be confident that this new beginning is intended," the expert stressed.
Confronted with Mozambique's recent history of lack of credibility, notably the state's hidden debt scandal since 2016, he said it is "extremely important that the mistakes of the past are not repeated."
"We are perhaps still seeing the first signs of these changes, and the program itself with the IMF is a strong sign that we intend to move" in this direction, he said.
Fáusio Mussá supports the idea of a sovereign fund, which has been discussed in the country, that would allow "gas revenues to benefit future generations" and would serve to create some "fiscal cushions for the country to face possible situations of commodity price volatility.
Standard Mozambique Bank forecasts GDP growth rates of 2.8% this year (already discounting the impact of the war in Ukraine and global inflationary risks), 3.7% next year, 4.1% in 2024 and 4.3% in 2025.