The first shipment of liquefied natural gas, produced in the Rovuma basin in northern Mozambique, will take place very soon, but the absence of the so-called Sovereign Fund to manage the revenues from this resource is worrying several sectors of public opinion because it allegedly calls into question the issue of transparency.

There are also concerns about the Local Content Law.

The government has not yet officially announced the date of the first shipment, being public that it will be from this semester on, but assumes that this raises, even more, the expectations of Mozambicans, regarding the gains of the natural gas exploration project in Cabo Delgado.

Célia Gomes Correia, director of Projects and Development, at the National Petroleum Institute, quoted by VOA says she is optimistic that the process of introducing hydrocarbons on the floating platform, which began a few days ago, will go according to plan, with annual gains estimated at $740 million, for a period of 25 years.

"But who will manage all this money, and how will this management be done?", wonders political analyst Moisés Mabunda, for whom the country is very late, because "this fund should already be working, and we should already be clear about its objectives."

Mabunda notes that "we are three or four months away from receiving the first earnings and we don't know what we are going to do, it is urgent that there is this fund and an inclusion in the decision about what is going to be done with the earnings, there must be transparency and the fund must be an autonomous institution and accountable to Parliament.

For political analyst Ilídio de Sousa, the Sovereign Wealth Fund issue is extremely important, at a time when the country is practically at the beginning of gas exploration, and there is great urgency in definitively establishing where it will be installed.

Sousa emphasizes that it is necessary to find a better place for this fund not to be confused with the State Budget, "because if there isn't this differentiation, it can lead to situations where you don't control and can't reinvest.

"Norway is one of the best countries in terms of sovereign fund management, it bet on the values of the fund and the Stock Exchange, I think that Mozambique can create an institution within the state framework, but that is not dependent on any administrative body," argues that analyst.

For his part, the political analyst Ismael Mussá believes that the most important thing is that the terms of reference of this fund be clear, that mechanisms for oversight and accountability be created, and that it be managed by suitable people.

He advocates, on the other hand, that the objectives from which these funds are to be applied are clear, and notes that there are countries, such as Brazil, that from the beginning have had clearly defined beneficiary sectors, "and for us, I think the key areas are education, health, agriculture, and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, social researcher Borges Namire says there are also problems in the implementation of the Local Content Law, which he says is a problematic issue, "because all the big infrastructure projects have the co-participation of the ruling party's political elite."