Africa-Press – Angola. The Minister of Territory Administration, Dionísio Manuel da Fonseca, said, in Lubango, that none of the country’s 164 municipalities has its own revenue and is sufficient to meet local development needs, but that there is work to reverse the situation.
The minister, who was speaking at a press conference as part of the closing of the IX Forum and the IV edition of the Feira dos Municípios e Cidades de Angola (FMCA), underlined that the State is committed to reversing this reality, with the transfer of responsibilities to the municipalities .
According to the minister, administrative and financial autonomy is an ongoing process in the field of strengthening decentralization, improving revenue collection, but it is still far from having truly autonomous municipalities that live on revenue.
“I didn’t mean to say that there is no potential, that is, the potential exists and the work we are doing is to properly transform that same potential into reality. However, there is ongoing work,” she said.
Regarding the slogan “Life is made in municipalities”, Dionísio da Fonseca said that it has been a reality in all locations in the country, in order to bring social services closer and closer to citizens, with a view to getting to know their citizens better. problems, difficulties and solve them.
He considered that the MAT has several challenges that go through the public policy programs, with the objective of improving the basic social conditions of the populations.
The minister also highlighted that there is an “ambitious” project by the Government to invest in tourism, with emphasis on the Okavango Zambezi, where communication routes will be built, as well as the construction of boreholes for water and electricity.
The government official considered that the works embodied in the Program for Rural Development and Combating Poverty, as well as the Integrated Plan for Intervention in Municipalities (PIIM) and the Public Investment Program (PIP), should have an information board that allows checking the work in progress. with transparency about what the government is doing.
The press conference was witnessed by the governor of Huíla, Nuno Mahapi, in his capacity as host and attended by provincial deputy governors and municipal administrators.
It should be noted that in his FMCA inaugural speech, Minister Dionísio stated that the administrative decentralization process increased municipal revenues from three million kwanzas in 2017 to more than 18 billion in 2022.
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