by Bayano Valy – SANF 05 no 13
The photo of Mozambique’s new cabinet shows a few returning faces from the previous government, and more women, but all seem to share at least one characteristic – as hard-working men and women.
Most of the new faces at the top were previously governors in the provinces or deputy ministers, learning the ropes in preparation for their new roles.
The process offers a model for a well-planned transition of power, to Mozambique’s third government since independence almost 30 years ago. The new cabinet is results-oriented, well-experienced and ready to govern.
Women occupy key, senior roles, as prime minister, minister of foreign affairs, and minister of labour.
Luisa Diogo has been prime minister for the past year, appointed in February 2004 when her predecessor, Pascoal Mocumbi, resigned to chair the High Commission of the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership Programme, a new scheme to facilitate clinical trials for drugs and vaccines against HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Diogo, from Zambezia province in north-central Mozambique, won plaudits as finance minister both in national and international circles. The finance portfolio, which she held simultaneously, was given to Manuel Chang, the deputy minister, to allow the prime minister to focus on coordinating government activities.
Chang rose through the ranks from a civil servant to national director (permanent secretary) for budgeting. He finds a leaner finance ministry. Before the change of government, there were two functions — finance and planning.
The planning function has been relocated and incorporated in a new planning and development ministry headed by Aiuba Cuereneia, the former deputy minister of state administration and a former national director of the public service.
Cuereneia was appointed by the Central Committee of the ruling party, Frelimo, to the senior post of secretary for administration and finance at the last congress in 2002.
The new foreign minister has large shoes to fill in following Dr Leonardo Simão, a medical doctor, well-known in the region and the international community for his straight-talking diagnoses and thoughtful diplomacy. However, Alcinda Abreu has the credentials for the job.
The foreign minister must be well-trusted by the president to convey the foreign policy of the country to other countries and organizations. Abreu has long experience in Frelimo and has held a cabinet portfolio before, as social welfare minister in the mid-1990s.
She did her grassroots work in the party’s youth league more than 20 years ago, and most recently, managed the successful election campaign that returned Frelimo to power in the December elections. She was elected to the 15-member Frelimo Political Committee (Frelimo’s most powerful body) at the 2002 congress.
Francisco Madeira, an able and respected diplomat retained from the previous government, remains Minister in the Presidency for Diplomatic Affairs. Madeira has a long working relationship with his new president, Armando Guebuza, in the Rome negotiations with the Renamo rebel movement, and later in the Great Lakes region, where he chaired the Committee on the Root Causes of the Conflict in Burundi.
Another minister in the presidency is Isabel Nkavandeka, who took the oath for the parliamentary affairs portfolio. She was a Frelimo deputy in the national assembly from 1994 to 2004, and in the last legislature, she was rapporteur for the parliamentary commission on international relations.
There has been a crucial appointment in the interior ministry, which has gone to José Pacheco, one of six former provincial governors promoted to ministerial posts. Pacheco was governor of the northern Cabo Delgado province, and previously a deputy minister of agriculture and rural development.
Like most other cabinet appointees, Pacheco is known for his no-nonsense approach, integrity and hard work. As governor, he worked hard to attract investors to his province. His main task will be to raise morale in the police force and clean out corruption among its officials.
Tobias Dai, a Shona-speaker from central Mozambique, keeps his job as defence minister. Dai, a widely respected military officer who rose through the ranks, was army commander in the late 1980s and early 1990s during the last years of the war.
One of Mozambique’s top surgeons, Ivo Garrrido, is the new health minister. He is expected to clean up the sector’s tarnished image. The Minister of Education and Culture, now merged, is Aires Aly, a former governor of Niassa and Inhambane provinces. He will work with two deputy ministers.
Virgília Matabele keeps her post as Minister for Women Affairs and Social Welfare. It was under her watch that parliament passed the Family Law which swept away the male bias inherent in the Civil Code inherited from Portuguese colonial rule.
Other cabinet returnees are the fisheries minister, Cadmiel Muthemba, and tourism minister, Fernando Sumbana, a former director of the Investment Promotion Centre.
The former governor of Tete province, Tomás Mandlate, becomes Minister of Agriculture, while his two peers from Niassa and Zambézia, David Simango and Lucas Chomera, respectively, took the oath as ministers of youth and sport, and state administration. Simango has won plaudits for revitalising Niassa’s agriculture sector.
The labour ministry went to one within the institution: Helena Taipo, formerly director of labour in the northern province of Nampula.
Other former deputy ministers promoted to cabinet include the Minister of Mineral Resources, Esperança Bias; the energy minister, Salvador Namburete; Minister of Environmental Coordination, Luciano Castro; and António Fernando, the Minister of Industry and Trade.
António Mungwambe, who was a deputy trade minister in the early 1990s, has returned as Minister of Transport.
Guebuza’s cabinet will have 26 ministers, including the prime minister, and seven deputy ministers. Eight cabinet members (27 percent) are women (six ministers and two deputy ministers).
In the final photo opportunity of the government of former President Joaquim Chissano, there were 24 ministers and 18 deputy ministers, of whom eight (19 percent) were women (three ministers and five deputy ministers). (SARDC)
