The President of the Republic, Filipe Nyusi, today in Maputo, dismissed the conclusions of the report by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and approved by his current government on the increase in poverty levels in the country during the eight years of his two terms in office.

Nyusi questioned the National Development Strategy (ENDE) 2025-2044 report when answering a question about the desired effectiveness of bilateral cooperation agreements, including those signed today with Botswana, for the development of Mozambique, when in the last ten years poverty has increased by around 87%.

"Read positive reports too, it will help you think," Nyusi began, and then asked "what is the gauge used to reach the conclusion you are saying".

According to Nyusi, the notion of poverty is relative to time. He gave the example of being born in a district where there were no secondary education institutions and having to move to the center to continue his studies.

"Now no child leaves a single district to go to secondary school. How many hospitals are there? Even in your case, we didn't have a journalist with the training [you] have. Poverty is relative to time. What was the population of Mozambique in the past? And if we had maintained that population number, with all the boreholes and water we made, there probably wouldn't have been enough people to consume all the water and energy," he said.

The President said that it is not the cooperation agreements that put an end to poverty. "The agreements signed here are exactly to end poverty, because they didn't exist". The idea is to create structural conditions for people to get out of poverty.

Nyusi said that agreements should not stop being made simply because there is poverty. "Poverty does not inhibit human beings from thinking. And at no time has it ever been said that Mozambique is out of this crisis".

According to the Head of State, poverty can be measured by various criteria, so there are no countries where everything exists and the minimum is not lacking.

"There are no countries where there are no beggars," he said.

Filipe Nyusi was speaking at a press conference at the Presidency of the Republic moments after his meeting with the President of the Republic of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi.

At the meeting, the two statesmen witnessed the signing of seven legal instruments for bilateral cooperation between the representatives of their respective governments. These are protocols in the field of anti-corruption, trade, social protection, transport safety and public order, agriculture and food safety, communication and information technology, and passenger and goods transportation.