Luanda, ANGOLA, April 23 - The minister of Territory Administration and State Reform, Adão de Almeida, on Monday in Luanda denied allegations that the Executive has selected ?developed municipalities? which will be the ones in which the first local elections, scheduled for next year, will take place. ,

 

“The Executive has not selected any municipality for the process of institutionalising the local governments, thus it is groundless the attempts to ascribe to it (the Executive) the drafting of a list of selected municipalities”, clarified the government official.

 

Adão de Almeida was speaking during the Sixth Plenary Session of the National Assembly (Parliament) which approved, in general terms, the Bill on the Institutionalisation of Local Governments.

 

The mentioned Bill was approved with 151 votes in favour (MPLA, UNITA and FNLA), six against (CASA-CE) and six abstentions (some CASA-CE MPs plus the PRS party).

 

In his statement to explain UNITA’s vote, Adalberto da Costa Júnior said that his party’s favourable vote represents an openness to dialogue in the specialty commissions, however he maintains the stance against gradualism (gradual implementation of local governments).  

 

Meanwhile, article number four of the Bill states that it is a competence of the National Assembly to create, through a law, the local governments and approve the list of municipalities according to the legal criteria.    

 

According to the Territory Administration minister “There is no support in the law or in the Executive’s stance the idea that the process is being prepared, in the first experience, with the intention of selecting more developed municipalities”.

 

During the parliamentary debate about the gradual implementation of local governments there were strong divergences between the ruling MPLA, which defends such stance, and the opposition.

 

The Executive defends gradual implementation of the local governments throughout a ten-year period, in the end of which all municipalities would finally be included.

 

The opposition parties, on their turn, defended that such type of gradualism will cause greater asymmetries and inequalities. They defend, instead, “Functional Gradualism”, that is, the inclusion of all municipalities in the process but the competences would be gradually transferred to the local governments.      

 

The Territory Administration minister clarified that the municipalities that may not be selected in the initial experience “will not be forgotten”, on the contrary, he said, “in those municipalities conditions must be created (in terms of infrastructures and services) to safeguard a harmonious development of the national territory and prepare them for their autonomy”.  

 

According to Adão de Almeida, to reduce this complex process to an electoral act is in the least a dangerous simplistic manner of looking at the issue, further stressing that “You do not change 44 years of (centralised) administrative culture from night to day”.

 

In the same session, the MPs also passed the Bill on the Financial Regime of Local Governments and the Bill on Local Taxes and Fees proposed by the Executive.

 

Meanwhile, the secretary of State for Budget and Public Investment, Aia Eza da Silva, explained that the Bill on Local Taxes and Fees is aimed at setting out the principles that will guide the mayors in establishing local fees.  

 

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