Mozambican Prime Minister Luisa Diogo on
Wednesday called on the Mozambican News Agency (AIM) to capitalise on
its 32 years of experience, to provide an ever better news service for
its readers inside and outside the country, according to a report from AIM.
She
was speaking at a ceremony to swear into office Gustavo Mavue as the
general director of AIM. Mavie was appointed under a government
dispatch of 15 June 2006 – but has in fact been in the job since 2001.
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This peculiar situation arose because AIM spent
over a decade in legal limbo. Under the one party state, AIM had been
subordinate to the Ministry of Information – but that ministry ceased
to exist in 1994.
For the next 12 years, AIM
operated without any statutes or formal legal status. In one truly
bizarre decision, the Administrative Tribunal, the body that oversees
public expenditure, in 1998 declared that AIM did not exist, and so
refused to place its stamp of authorisation on any procedure to do with
the Agency. This made it extremely difficult for the agency to recruit
staff.
Nonetheless, the determination of its
journalists ensured that AIM continued to publish its services every
day, in Portuguese and in English.
The
government finally approved a set of statutes for AIM in April 2006,
and it was under these that Mavie was confirmed in his position.
At
Wednesday's ceremony, Mavie declared that his appointment could be
described as "change in continuity" because "the institution is the
same and the problems are the same".
He
pointed out that AIM's main problems are financial. "The shortage of
resources facing AIM inhibits any initiative to improve still further
the Agency's performance", said Mavie.
Click here to read the full report, posted on allafrica.com.
