Maputo, Mozambique, 23 May – The group of 19 countries and organizations that directly finances the Mozambican state budget has pledged funding of US$774.3 million, the representative of the Programme Aid Partners (PAP), Frank Sheridan said in Maputo.

The US$774,3 million can be divided into US$455.2 million in direct budgetary support and US$329.1 million in common funds and sector programmes.

Sheridan said that the fall in the value of the US dollar had contributed significantly to the rise in value of the aid, as compared to last year when it totalled US$627 million.

There were areas that were assessed positively by the donors, specifically management of public finances and macroeconomic management in general, particularly in the area of taxation.

The PAP showed some concern about performance in the area of governance, particularly the lack of indicators to show progress in the fight against corruption.

“The delayed presentation of accounts on two sensitive indicators in this are by the Justice sector affected the confidence of the donors in terms of lack of transparency of the joint revision,” said the partner representative, noting that “until the second to last day of the revision there was a lack of information on the situation of the legal cases related to Banco Austral.”

In reaction to this concern of the PAP, the Mozambican minister for Planning and Development, Aiuba Cuereneia, said that the Government agreed that there was periodic information that needed to be provided, but that at the moment the case was being dealt with by the Attorney General’s Office.

The G19 is made up of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the European Commission, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland, the World Bank and the African Development Bank. (macauhub)