The non-governmental organization Center for Democracy and Development (CDD) today criticized the ruling Frelimo party for having bought and distributed 17 luxury vehicles to senior party officials at a time of high living costs.

Last week, the President of the Republic and of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo), Filipe Nyusi, publicly delivered 17 Nissan Patrol cars to the six members of the party's Central Committee secretariat and the first provincial secretaries.

"The distribution of vehicles comes at a time when the majority of the Mozambican population is facing difficulties in providing for their basic needs, such as food, housing, health and transportation," says a CDD statement quoted by Lusa.

Part of the "luxury vehicles" allocated to Frelimo's executive leaders will circulate not only on roads that the mayors elected by the ruling party cannot put in conditions, but also in cities where thousands of people are transported in inhuman conditions, the note also states.

The urban transport crisis, especially in the cities of Maputo and Matola, is the most eloquent testimony of Frelimo's governmental incompetence, analyses CDD.

"The act reveals how the Frelimo ruling elite has shirked its own responsibilities and naturalized the suffering of millions of Mozambicans," he further charges.

The NGO points out that Frelimo's "fleet" is being presented at a time when thousands of employees and agents of the state are frustrated with "the great scam that is the Single Wage Table.

"The distribution of luxury vehicles to members with executive positions in Frelimo, especially the publicizing of this act, documents the neglect of those who set out to create conditions for the more than 30 million Mozambicans to find opportunities to solve their problems," the note further says.

The economic and financial crisis that affects millions of Mozambicans and the generalized dissatisfaction in the Civil Service should lead the Frelimo leadership to be more pondered and less exhibitionist, he continues.

"Displaying luxury vehicles amidst the misery that affects the majority of Mozambicans, including the nearly one million displaced people in Cabo Delgado, constitutes a blatant lack of patriotic sense," the statement notes.