Reserving agricultural projects for liberation veterans turns political ancestry into an economic entitlement Mozambique cannot afford
Good afternoon. At the Victory Day ceremony in Maputo’s Praça dos Heróis on 7 September, President Daniel Chapo announced that 10% of agricultural projects would be reserved for veterans of Mozambique’s liberation struggle. It is a bad policy in a sector too important to be distributed according to political pedigree.
Agriculture supports most Mozambican livelihoods and is fundamental to food security. Land, finance and viable projects are already scarce. Reserving a substantial share for one politically powerful constituency means withholding opportunities from farmers, entrepreneurs and young people who may be better able to use them productively.
This is especially provocative in a country where resentment is already intense over the access enjoyed by Frelimo leaders and their families to land, licences, contracts and other valuable state-controlled opportunities. Many Mozambicans will see Chapo’s announcement not as recognition of sacrifice but as another example of the ruling elite reserving the best of the country for itself.
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The policy is also based on a category that has changed profoundly. Being a liberation veteran was once a biographical fact: a person had participated in the struggle that ended more than half a century ago. It has increasingly become a transferable and effectively hereditary status, extending benefits to children and other descendants who took no part in that struggle.
In Niassa and Cabo Delgado, the number of people receiving veterans’ pensions has long been regarded as implausibly high in relation to the number of genuine surviving combatants. Veteran status has become a source of income and influence, while the organised veterans’ lobby can exert considerable pressure on provincial and district officials. The Local Force in Cabo Delgado is nominally associated with veterans, but in practice includes many younger men attracted partly by the prospect of an allowance.
