DIRE

The Foreigner Identification and Residence Document (DIRE) and entry visa are more expensive since July 5th. The temporary DIRE went from 19,200 to 33,760 meticais, the permanent and lifetime from 22,200 to 62,520 meticais.

The granting, renewal or replacement of the Identity Card has not changed in price, with 85 meticals for minors under 18 and 165 meticals for minors of the same age.

Crew transhipment, transit and single visas for 1 to 30 days have cost 6,252 meticais, compared with the previous 1,350 meticais.

The simple 31-60 day visa and the 61-90 day visa, which cost 2,700 and 4,050 meticais, were increased to 12,504 and 18,756 meticais, respectively.

The 1 to 90 day work visa, which previously cost 3,600, was revised to 8,440 meticais. The same happened with the investment visa for the same period. What's more, in both cases, the government abolished the one-year visa.

The new rates are contained in Ministerial Diploma 64/2019 of 5 July, approved on 24 May last, by the Ministers of Interior and Economy and Finance, Jaime Basílio Monteiro and Adriano Maleiane, respectively.

Of pesticide abuse

In the 2018-19 agricultural campaign, Mozambique lost over 40,000 hectares of cultivated land because of the abuse of pesticides in the attempt to control insect pests. Interviewed by the Portuguese news agency Lusa, Aderito Lazaro of the Plant Health Department in the Ministry of Agriculture, said “the use of chemicals should be a last resort. However, at the first sign of a pest, the producers grab their pesticides, and one of the mistakes is that they use the same substance repeatedly. They should rotate”.

Lazaro cited the case of Boane district, 30 kilometres west of Maputo, where farmers had doubled the amount of pesticides used per week – without getting rid of the pests damaging the maize crop. Insects are showing signs of resistance to pesticides throughout the country.

The Agriculture Ministry, in partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has publicised methods to handle pests through an integrated range of measures, including not only conventional insecticides, but also biological pesticides and improved seed. Meanwhile, a new pest is threatening banana growers in Chokwe district, in the Limpopo valley. This is the banana bunchy top virus (BBTV). To prevent the spread of the virus the authorities are destroying infected banana trees in several plantations. “This virus is lethal, and regardless of whether we cut the trees down or not, they will die”, said Celso Rufasse, coordinator of the BBTV project, cited by the independent daily “O Pais”.

“If we don’t cut the trees down, there will be a greater dispersal of the disease”, he continued. “The goal is to avoid the spread of the virus, so that we can eradicate the disease”.

Destroying the infected plants began a month ago, and so far almost 30,000 banana trees have been cut down in Chokwe. There is ban in place on the movement of bananas from Chokwe to elsewhere in the country. The elimination of infected plants is budgeted at 20 million meticais (about 323,000 US dollars), and this task is receiving assistance from South Africa and the United States. The virus is transmitted plant to plant by banana aphids. The virus damages the cells of the host plant, and usually prevents it from producing fruit. Any fruit that is produced is likely to be deformed. Since there are no varieties of banana that are resistant to the virus, the only ways to eliminate the disease are to control the aphids, or to remove and destroy infected plants before the virus spreads.

VAT could be used to strengthen social

Mozambican researcher António Francisco on Tuesday suggested that part of Mozambique’s Value Added Tax (VAT) income could be channelled into social security, with a view to reducing poverty and inequality in the country.

“We should be aware that there are people who do not pay [Social Security] directly [through wages], but contribute to the economy through VAT. Part of that VAT could be indirectly returned to those over 60 years of age,” Francisco, a professor at Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), Mozambique’s largest and oldest, explained. Speaking in Maputo yesterday at the conference on “Poverty, inequalities and development models for the country”, Francisco explained that the state collects direct revenue through salaries, and indirect revenue through VAT. The overwhelming majority of Mozambicans have no wages to contribute to social security, but do contribute to the economy through VAT.

“VAT is already being collected, so why not take 2% or 3% to capitalise and give back to the elderly when they stop working?” he asks. António Francisco also explained that Mozambique’s social protection system was built after a model designed to suit formal economies, which is not the case here.

“To develop the social protection system adapted to this country, we have to create indirect mechanisms, so as to deliver (social benefits) to people who do not pay in, because they have no salary,” he said. The current system, he says, “abandons” and “humiliates” the elderly. And he leaves a question: “Do you really give 300 meticais [US$4.82] from time to time to an elderly person who has contributed to the economy by paying VAT?”

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030) urge us “not leave anyone behind”, but Mozambique leaves the majority behind, he added. “The only ones who are protected are those who have wages. The system is discriminatory and non-inclusive, we should devise an inclusive system adapted to the economy we actually have,” said the UEM professor.