Communication - Presse
Financing to the State Budget: IMF disburses first tranche this month
The International Monetary FUND (IMF) will this month disburse the first tranche of the approximately US$400 million it has set aside to finance the Mozambican State Budget for 2022.
The fact was advanced by the spokesman for the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), Alfredo Mutombene, speaking last Saturday on Radio Mozambique’s Linha Directa programme.
“It will be disbursed this month – I think it’s 15% percent of the amount, or less – to straighten out the State Budget, for specific expenses,” Mutombene said.
The money that the IMF was allocating in this first phase would support expenses related to public debt, currently standing at more than US$14 billion, he added.
The IMF’s main objective initially was, according to the MEF spokesperson, to bring the public debt trajectory to within sustainable levels.
“Therefore, one way to do this is to look for a source of funds to amortize, or rather, pay the capital services in interest,” he said, stressing that the agreement with the IMF establishes that the country cannot go in search of new commercial loans.
“We always have to prioritise concessional (loans), which are the cheapest and have the longest maturity, and also reduce the need to get treasury bonds, which are those that the State will get at the level of the national market,” Mutombene explained.
The IMF this year announced that it would resume direct support to Mozambique’s State Budget, which it had interrupted with the revelation of the ‘hidden debts’ scandal in 2016.
