AFRICA/MOZAMBIQUE – Gas exports begin, but will this resource be used to lift the country out of poverty?

AFRICA/MOZAMBIQUE Gas exports begin. But will this resource be used in order to lift the country from poverty?

Maputo (Agenzia Fides). Mozambique welcomes its first exports of liquefied natural gases (LNG). The departure of the Coral Sul offshore gas plant’s first supply on November 13 will bring an end to the “social and economic inequalities that are creating a deep divide”, according to the Mozambican bishops. The Bishops say that there is a rich minority that can afford luxury items and a poor majority that cannot even survive. They hope for courageous policies to end the gap between brothers and sisters.
The great hope of redemption for the country is the gas found in the fields on the northern Mozambican coast. However, it comes at the cost of instability in the area due to an insurrection that has taken on a jihadist identity, earning itself the nickname of Province of the Islamic State of Mozambique.
In a pastoral note published November 11, the Bishops reminded that the “terrorist conflict” in Cabo Delago, in the northern Mozambique province, began more than five year ago and is now reaching an “ever-wider area”, which included the Niassa, Nampula, and other provinces. “Destroy and violent deaths of innocent women and men, children, and people of goodwill are sown,” recall the Bishops.
The extreme poverty of the local population, especially the young, is a strong motivator for recruitment to the jihadist ranks. This is what underlines the Mozambican bishopate. “Young Mozambicans continue swell the ranks that sow terror” and it’s precisely the youth who succumb to these incessant waves violence. “The lack of hope for a better tomorrow” means that “young people allow themselves be seduced by the call of jihadists.” According to the Bishops, “No peace can survive exclusions or social injustices”, corruption is “another of the great evils” in the country. “Greed sometimes leads us to favor large economic projects by foreign capital to extract natural resources without a real involvement of the people.” Gas exploitation is expected to generate revenues of nearly $100 billion over the next 25-years. But will this be enough to give the nation the desired economic empowerment. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 18/11/2022)

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