Maputo — The Mozambican government announced on Tuesday that two days of national mourning will be held to mark the passing of former Prime Minister Mario Machungo, who died in Lisbon on Monday.
Speaking to reporters at the end of the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), the government spokesperson, Deputy Justice Minister Filimao Suaze, said the national mourning will begin at zero hours on Sunday, and last until 24.00 on Monday. During the mourning period the national flag will fly at half mast throughout the country. The official funeral of Machungo will be held on Tuesday.
A statement from the Council of Ministers noted that, as a student in Portugal in the 1960s he was a clandestine member of the national liberation movement, Frelimo. He was elected deputy president of the Association of Students of the Lisbon Higher Institute of Economic and Financial Sciences, but following this election, he was expelled from the Institute.
Nonetheless, he completed his university course in 1969, and returned to Mozambique the following year. He worked as an economist at one of the largest Portuguese banks, the Banco de Fomento Nacional, but at the same time undertook clandestine missions for Frelimo.
After the fall of fascism in Lisbon in 1974, and the independence agreement between Frelimo and the new Portuguese government, Machungo became Minister of Economic Cooperation in the transitional government.
After full independence in 1975, Machungo held several cabinet posts in the governments of Samora Machel and Joaquim Chissano, including Minister of Industry, Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Planning, governor of Zambezia province, and finally Prime Minister from 1986 to 1994.
After leaving the government, Machungo moved into banking. He founded the International Bank of Mozambique (BIM), which became the largest commercial bank in the country, and was chairperson of its board from 1995 to 2015.
One of the most fitting tributes to Machungo came from prominent Mozambican economist Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco who wrote on his Facebook page “A lot will be spoken about his rich official trajectory in Frelimo and in the Mozambican government. But Mario Machungo was more than this. One of the last representatives of the socialist management line in Frelimo, Machungo promoted, sponsored or joined social causes he believed were just, useful and fundamental to generate real alternatives to neo-liberalism and its mirror image, oligarchic and corporatist economic nationalism, both controlled by multinational capital”.
One example cited by Castel-Branco, was Machungo’s assistance in launching the radical Mozambican think-tank, the Institute of Economic and Social Studies (IESE), and in promoting an agenda of independent economic and social research”.
Castel-Branco adds that the deaths, inside a week, of Machungo and of Frelimo founder member Marcelino dos Santos “mark the end of an era and of the tenuous historical ties that still existed between Frelimo and its socialist project. The seeds that they both planted are germinating in society. Sometimes people come along who cut down flowers and rip out the tall grass, but the seeds stubbornly germinate again. As (the Chilean poet Pablo) Neruda said, cutting down the flowers that bloom does not prevent the arrival of spring”.
ALL AFRICA
