The Mozambican government has drawn up a survey of land that has been allocated to individuals or companies, but which is still lying idle.
Agriculture Minister Jose Pacheco told the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on Wednesday that the survey had found 913,000 hectares of land left idle, despite the government granting title to the land.
This was a startling 37 percent of all land to which the government had granted title in the period between 2005 and 2010.
Pacheco did not say what would be done with this land, but in the past, government officials have repeatedly warned that land titles will be cancelled in cases where the holders do not use the land for the purposes stated when they applied for it.
Pacheco was answering a request from the parliamentary group of the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, about what benefits Mozambicans are obtaining from the exploitation of the country's natural resources.
According to the Mozambique News Agency (AIM) on Wednesday, on a more positive note, Pacheco said that the agro-ecological zoning of the central province of Zambezia has been concluded, and that the zoning of three other provinces (Sofala, Nampula and Cabo Delgado) should be complete by the end of the year. "This exercise will allow better management of land", the Minister stressed.
Pacheco also claimed that the capacity to supervise and control how forestry and wildlife resources are exploited has improved with the training of more wardens, and the provision of more equipment.
Based on forest inventories, the size of the area covered by logging licences has been reduced. He said that reforestation this year, with both native and exotic tree species, covered 12,990 hectares.
About 20 percent of the fees paid by forestry and wildlife operators should go to local communities. Pacheco revealed that, since this scheme began, in 2005, 738 communities have benefitted, and have received a total of 96 million meticais (about 3.6 million U.S. dollars).
Communities define their own priorities in how this money should be spent. Pacheco said the government was pleased to note that in most cases the money had been used for such purposes as acquiring flour mills, opening wells, building homes and markets, rehabilitating schools and buying bicycles.
The Minister of Mineral Resources, Esperanca Bias, told the Assembly that mining companies were now providing significant numbers of jobs.
The large open cast coal mines in the western province of Tete were already employing over 3,000 people.
The Brazilian mining giant Vale began exports from its mine at Moatize in September, and the neighboring mine at Benga, operated by Rio Tinto, is expected to start exports by the end of the year.
Several other coal mining companies are at various stages of feasibility studies and preparing to begin operations.
Employment in this sector is likely to rise significantly. Bias added that the mining of titanium minerals from the heavy sands at Moma, in Nampula province, by the Irish company, Kenmare Resources, has provided over 700 jobs, while the reopened tantalite mine at Marropino in Zambezia has created 521 jobs.
Mineral resources also provided a significant source of tax revenue. Bias said that in 2010 about a billion meticais (37 million U.S. dollars) in taxes was collected from hydrocarbon companies.
The frequent claim that large scale mining projects pay little or no tax was untrue. She pointed out that the 2009 fiscal benefits code specifically excludes the mining and petroleum sectors.
Some of the early fiscal benefits granted to mega-projects were temporary and have now lapsed. This was the case, she said, with the 50 percent reduction in corporation tax paid by the South African petro-chemical company Sasol on its natural gas operations in Inhambane province. That fiscal benefit expired in 2010.
Editor: Xiong Tong
English.news.cn 2011-11-17 10:36:31 FeedbackPrintRSS
MAPUTO, Nov. 16 (Xinhua)
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