Carlos Agostinho do Rosario was dismissed as Prime Minister and Adriano Maleiane was promoted from Minister of Economy and Finance to Prime Minister in a 2-3 March reshuffle. Both had been in post since being named to President Filipe's Nyusi's first government, on 17 January 2015.

This triggered two other promotions. Maleiane's seat is taken by Max Tonela (formerly Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy and before that 2015-17 Minister of Industry and Trade). He, in turn, is replaced by Carlos Zacarias (formerly chair of the National Petroleum Institute). Both are respected technocrats.

Joao Machatine was dismissed as Minister of Public Works, Housing and Water Resources. He is replaced by Carlos Mesquita (formerly Minister of Industry and Trade, and in Nyusi's first 2015-19 government Minister of Transport and Communications. Before that he was head of Cornelder de Mocambique, the company that runs the port of Beira). Mesquita in turn is replaced at Industry and Trade by Silvino Moreno (formerly chair of Ecobank-Mozambique)

Max Tonela was head of Mozambique's petroleum and gas industry. He was appointed Minister of Mineral Resources in 2017, and had been Minister of Industry and Trade between 2015 and 2017. He was director of economy and finance in the publicly owned electricity company, EDM, between 1997 and 2007, and from 2007 to 2015 he was a member of the board of Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa, the company that operates the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi River.

Two other dismissals. Augusta Maita was dismissed as Minister of the Sea, Inland Waters and Fisheries. She had only been appointed in 2020, having previously been head of the National Disaster Management Institute (INGC). She is replaced by a promoted Lidia Cardoso (formerly Deputy Minister of Health).

Carlos Siliya is dismissed as Minister of Veterans' Affairs, with no replacement. The veteran of the national liberation struggle had only been named in 2020.

New Ministers are:
 Prime Minister, Adriano Maleiane
Economy and Finance, Max Tonela
Public Works, Carlos Mesquita
Mineral Resources and Energy, Carlos Zacarias
Sea, Inland Waters and Fisheries, Lidia Cardoso
Industry and Trade, Silvino Moreno

Holding the purse strings. As in many other countries that had shock therapy and neoliberalism imposed in the 1990s, Mozambique has become a patronage country. President Nyusi and ex-President Guebuza are fighting a bitter battle to control Frelimo and choose the next President. The battle will be about who has the most patronage within the party. Max Tonela, Carlos Zacarias and Carlos Mesquita are all very close to Nyusi and control money; key construction contracts; and contracts, land and licences in the gas and minerals sector. Going up to the party Congress in September and the choice of Presidential candidate next year, their control of patronage should give Nyusi a major advantage. But the three have shown themselves good enough technicians to not allow seriously harmful contracts.

Rosario and Maleiane had been picked from relative obscurity by Nyusi 2015 as people without alliances to the Frelimo party factions. Rosario held various posts in the Joaquim Chissano government and then from 2002 served first as ambassador to India and then to Indonesia, his post when he was named prime minister.

At 72 years old Adriano Maleiane is the oldest member of the government. He was a highly respected governor of the Bank of Mozambique (Banco de Moçambique, BdM) in the critical period 1991 to 2006. He then moved into the private sector from which he was planning his retirement when Nyusi pulled him back into government.in 2015. He was reluctant and is said to have wanted to quit when he found that the treasury was empty because of the secret debt scandal.

He has a history of trying to clean up other people's corruption and messes - not always successfully. As Finance Minister he had to deal with the secret debt crisis.

Going back 30 years, soon after his appointment, Maleiane managed the division of BdM . Since independence, BdM had been both the central bank and the main commercial bank. In 1992 he split off the commercial part into a new bank, Banco Comercial de Moçambique (BCM). But by the late 1980s corruption was already becoming a problem. Maleiane's priority was transforming BdM into an effective and honest central bank and he moved the corrupt, incompetent and lazy staff over to BCM, which was subsequently caught in a scandal. https://bit.ly/Moz-Golden-Goose

He unsuccessfully fought the corrupt privatizations of BCM and BPD demanded by the World Bank and IMF - which said aid would be cut off if privatisations were not done - and then Maleiane had to try to clean up the resulting scandals. He named chief of banking supervision António Siba Siba Macuacua as head of the bankrupt Banco Austral on 3 April 2001, and Siba Siba started publishing lists of bad and illegal debts and was moving toward senior people. Siba Siba was assassinated and thrown down the staircase of the bank on 11 August 2001. No one was ever prosecuted.

Copyright Mozambique News Reports And Clippings. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source News Service English