Mozambique won’t privatise ID services

Maputo – Mozambican Interior Minister Jose Pacheco said on Saturday that hiring a private company to produce identity cards was not a privatisation of the country’s identification services, which remained a state responsibility.

Speaking in the debate on the 2009 plan and state budget, Pacheco was responding to Jose Palaco, of the opposition Renamo-Electoral Union coalition, who claimed that involving a private company in the production of identity cards and passports means ‘the country is for sale, our sovereignty is for sale’.
Pacheco denied that there was any threat to sovereignty. The National Directorate of Civil Identification and the National Immigration Directorate were not being privatised, but would remain State bodies, and the factory where identification documents were produced would remain state owned.
‘What we want to do is to hire a competent body with recognised experience, and with recognised technical and financial capacity, to produce the documents, seeking to respond to the demand,’ said the minister.
He said this was simply a matter of the state purchasing technical assistance. The company hired would be expected to provide equipment, train Mozambican staff, and ensure that identification documents are produced within a reasonable time.
Interviewed by Radio Mozambique on Friday, the National Director of Civil Identification, Helder dos Santos, said that his institution faces a backlog of 290 000 requests for identity cards from citizens. Obsolete equipment is part of the problem, and the result is that acquiring an identity card can take up to two years. Meanwhile, Fisheries Minister Cadmiel Muthemba, responding to deputies’ complaints of the pillaging of the country’s marine resources by foreign fishing vessels, pointed out that purchasing just one modern fisheries patrol vessel would cost US$18 million. Nonetheless Mozambique’s use of a satellite inspection system had made it possible to keep industrial fishing ships out of the three mile strip alongside the coast, which is reserved for artisanal fishermen. Muthemba said that 57 violations of fishing rules had been detected in 2008.
These included fishing in the closed season, fishing with prohibited or damaging gear, fishing for protected species (such as sharks), fishing in areas not covered by the vessel’s licence, and false declarations of the amount caught. The punishment of offenders had included fines, seizure of the catch, confiscation of vessels and of fishing gear, and destruction of illegal equipment. – Nampa-AIM