The President of Mozambique Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, has said that the integration of Africa and its economic liberation remain high on the agenda of leaders at various fora.
He said stated that the struggle for the liberation of Africa of which Ghana was one of its leaders, was not only for political liberation.
Addressing Parliament, in Accra, yesterday, President Nyusi, who is on a four-day official visit to Ghana, said the political liberation of the continent would mean nothing if it continued to tie it’s development apron to external aid.
He said the call by Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President that African must unite (in his book ‘Africa Unite’), was based on the wisdom and vision that political independence would be nothing if the people remain independent under external aid.
President Nyusi said “So the economic liberation, the regional integration of Africa remains a central topic and is a top of priorities of our co-operations at bilateral and regional levels such as South African Development Community, Economic Community of West African States, the East Africa Community, and at the continental level at the African Union (AU)”.
President Nyusi’ s assurances came on the day the continent was observing the AU Day; a day set aside by the Union, to commemorate the formation of the foundation of the Organisation of Africa Unity, now AU.
The organisation was intended to champion the liberation of Africa, which was largely under colonial rule and to ultimately unite the continent.
It was in the context of this commitment that President Nyusi said he signed various co-operation agreements with Ghana on the first day of his visit.
The agreement, President Nyusi said, has strong component of co-operations in different sectors of the economy such as agriculture, industry, trade, tourism, mineral resources, and science and technology.
Ghana, he said, has valuable experience in putting appropriate legal frameworks to regulate it’s extractive industry, an experience he said the South African country would want to tap into.
“We will like to benefit from the good experience of Ghana in establishing favourable legal framework that will allow us a sustainable management of resources like gold, oil and gas, and how to maximize the local content to empower our private sector,” President Nyusisaid.
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, Commended President Nyusi, saying “For Africa to develop, this is the way to go. We need to look within ourselves, acknowledge and appreciate our values, work together and market those values to the good people of the world.”
Minority Chief Whip, Alhaji Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, said the visit of President Nyusishould rekindle the need for African countries to put in place mechanisms to trade more among themselves.
“We as African people must learn to trade more within because it is the only way our independence will be meaningful. So long as we continue to rely on only political independence and not being able to liberate ourselves economically, the challenges that confront us today will continue to face us,” AlhajiMuntaka, who is also MP, Asawase, said.
The Majority Leader, OseiKyei-Mensah-Bonsu, called for exchange of valuable lessons between Ghana and Mozambique in cotton production, poultry farming, cashew nut and sugarcane farming, areas Mozambique was doing well.
“In industry, Mozambique produces food beverages, fertilisers, soap, textiles, cement, glass, and tobacco. Our textile industry today is gone. Mozambique is closer to China and in terms of dumping industrial products, their domestic production could be more at risk than Ghana, yet they have developed internal mechanisms to forestall it. How have they done that? How have they managed to protect their local industries? There are useful lesson there to be learnt,” he noted.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
The post Mozambican Pres advocates Africa’s integration … for economic liberation appeared first on Ghanaian Times.
Read Full Story
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
LinkedIn
RSS