According to government spokesperson and Minister of Planning and Development, Salim Valá, who spoke to journalists on Tuesday, after a meeting of the Council of Ministers (cabinet), the amount will boost local economies and improve the living conditions of communities.
Resources were allocated based on criteria such as poverty index and population density, covering 209 administrative posts, distributed across 144 districts and 65 municipalities.
“The process of finalizing administrative aspects relating to contracts between the State and borrowers, including repayment plans, is ongoing,” he said.
The data presented by the Minister show that FDEL received a total of 253,440 project proposals at national level, of which 3,384 were approved, with some in the financing phase.
The province of Nampula, in the north of the country, leads the number of projects financed, with 3,530, followed by the central province of Tete (1,903), the northern province of Cabo Delgado (1,530) and the central provinces of Zambézia (1,125) and Sofala (1,155).
According to Valá, borrowers request greater agility in financing approved projects, as well as reinforcement in mentoring and monitoring, to ensure the correct implementation of the initiatives.
The Government expects that the projects financed will contribute to local socioeconomic development and guarantee the sustainability of the fund.
FDEL should be a revolving fund. The money does not take the form of grants, but of loans. Once repaid, the money can be used to support other projects.
This, said Vala, means “that other Mozambicans, at another stage, can also benefit from the resources to finance their business activities”.
Among the main challenges, the spokesperson highlighted the need for continuous training of beneficiaries, highlighting the importance of involving local technical staff in monitoring and training borrowers.
FDEL was launched by President Daniel Chapo in 2025, with an initial capital of approximately 15 million dollars. The fund aims to boost rural and local economies, with a focus on young people and women, by granting credit with subsidized interest rates of five percent and repayment terms between 12 and 24 months.
The FDEL is openly a reissue of the scheme known as “the seven million meticais” introduced a quarter of a century ago by one of Chapo’s predecessors, Armando Guebuza.
Under Guebuza’s scheme, every district in the country received seven million meticais annually (about 109 thousand US dollars, at the current exchange rate), but it was worth much more at the time. The money was then distributed to people who came up with viable projects to improve food security or increase employment.
The money distributed under the “seven million meticais” scheme should be reimbursed. But most recipients treated the money as a gift rather than a loan.
The Guebuza government made no serious attempt to recover the money and the scheme was never audited.
The current government says that this time beneficiaries must repay their loans.
(AIM)
Ac/Ad/PF (534)
