Armando Guebuza, who becomes president of Mozambique this week, has vowed to fulfill his election pledges, and work hard to generate national confidence and self esteem.

He told Frelimo cadres that his first main challenge is to “boost the self-esteem of Mozambicans to do things on their own, and trust their own ideas.”

Other challenges include sustaining economic growth and reducing poverty, public sector reform, private sector development, unemployment, and HIV and AIDS.

Guebuza takes over a country which has been recording an impressive economic growth. Under his predecessor, Joaquim Chissano, Mozambique has been averaging a seven percent growth in recent years, which compares favourably to the Southern African Development Community region average of two to three percent.

However, there is still a long way to cater for the growing needs of Mozambique’s 18-million population, 38 percent of whom live on less than a dollar a day, according to the latest United Nations reports.

The outgoing government managed to reduce Mozambique’s dependency on donor funds from 60 to 50 percent of the state budget, and the new president will have to marshall his knowledge in management and human resources to continue the downward trend.

Economic growth could be undermined by the toll being taken by the HIV and AIDS scourge. Not unlike other southern Afican countries, Mozambique is faced with HIV prevalence figures in the range of double digits – it is estimated that the infection rate is about 15 percent.

Guebuza said that the fight against HIV and AIDS would need to be improved because “it is a grave problem that can create problems to national development.”

Another area that Guebuza will have to tackle is governance. Journalist Fernando Gonçalves said that “there’s a set of factors related to governance that have bred a system that tends to exclude the bulk of Mozambicans.”

He will have to pay close attention to this charge since it is linked to graft and corruption. Indeed during the election campaign Frelimo described itself as the “Force for Change,” meaning that changes and reforms would be forthcoming especially in the public sector.

In 2001, Chissano unveiled a 10-year initiative aimed at improving public finance management, and the professionalisation of civil servants, amongst other things.

The new president inherits a country saddled with high unemployment rates. It is estimated that the country’s formal employment figure stands at slightly over 521,000 – five percent of adults that could be employable, a telling figure if it is considered that there are about eight million Mozambicans in that age group. The remaining 95 percent are in the informal sector and agriculture.

The private sector argues that government’s policies have not encouraged the growth of the sector. It argues it could employ more if the state created more incentives for job creation. Such incentives include reduction of industry tax, getting rid of the clumsy red-tape, reduce customs duties, overhaul the labour law to make it easy to fire workers, among others.

His interests in business – Guebuza’s name is linked to various business ventures – is likely to give him an insider understanding of the problems affecting the private sector, which he could turn into an asset to make the necessary reforms.

The new Mozambican president is no stranger to regional issues, having played a pivotal role in advancing the concept of development corridors when he was minister of transport and communications, as he sought regional cooperation in the then Southern Africa Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). (SARDC)

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