Revenues from exploring mining resources in Mozambique should be used to solve the country’s problems rather than for anything else, the spokesman for the Mining resources Ministry said in Maputo.

Cited by the Mozambican press, Custódio Nguetana said that Mozambique was not in a position to “get hold of the money and keep it in a bank,” to create a Sovereign Fund or Macroeconomic Stabilisation Fund or to finance a development bank.

Creating these funds or a development bank was a proposal made recently by Mozambique’s Tributary Authority at a press conference to explain the formula used to calculate the tax applied to the sale by Italian group ENI of a stake in an oil block in the Rovuma basin to the China National Petroleum Corporation.

After this sale, the Italian group agreed to pay the Mozambican authorities US$400 million in cash and spend US$130 million on building a thermal power plant in the north of the country.

Nguetane said that Mozambicans should first “solve the country’s real problems, either from an infrastructure point of view, or from a social point of view,” and added that when there “are no longer problems with health, education etc., then the money can be put in the bank.” (macauhub)