Maputo, Mozambique, 1 March – The group of 19 donor countries and international agencies(G-19) that provides direct support to the Mozambican state budget, warned the government that cash deliveries for this year were expected to start only in April, said the country’s Finance Minister.

Cited by newspaper O País, Manuel Chang said that the funds usually started to be handed over in January but that this year the government had been informed that this year that would happen only in April.

However, Chang gave assurances that the States accounts were in order and added that the government was managing the budget based on the information received.

Last year, the G-19 pledged US$471.8 million in direct budgetary aid for 2010, a figure that represented a rise of 6 percent year on year.

Fifteen of the G19 maintained a similar amount of aid as in 2009, but Canada and the World Bank increased their contributions from 7.5 million Canadian dollars to 15 million Canadian dollars and from US$70 million to US$110 million in the World Bank’s case.

Chang told the paper that the only way of overcoming all these problems was to increase Mozambique’s tax revenues.

However his projection that state revenues could increase this year to 18 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is far from the average for Africa, which is around 23 to 24 percent.

Recently, the minister for planning and development, Aiuba Cuereneia, said that this year’s budget would benefit proportionally less from foreign aid, projecting that 45 percent would be covered by foreign aid as compared to 52 percent in 2009. (macauhub)