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Monday, June 28, 2021

SADC assigns $12M for deployment of standby force for Cabo Delgado in Mozambique

LUANDA, Angola 

The head of Angolan diplomacy on Monday in Luanda announced a budget of US$12 million (10 million euros) for the deployment of the SADC standby force in support of Mozambique.

Téte António, who was attending an extraordinary virtual meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), said at the end of the meeting that it was held as part of the fulfilment of a decision of the Maputo summit.

According to Angola’s foreign minister, the Council of Ministers, made up of foreign ministers, “was tasked with working on the budget of the force that should be operated to support Mozambique”.

He noted that the sources of funding for the force are made up of a contingency fund and contributions from the member states that participate in the force, which should also contribute between themselves with US$7 million (5.8 million euros).

The minister said it was also determined that, given the situation that many countries in the region are experiencing, recourse may be made to the organisation’s reserve fund, “to allow for no delays in the fulfilment of this mission”.

“As you know it is a question of survival of the region, the situation in Cabo Delgado is serious, the organisation has to deal with it immediately and it was determined the deadline for contributions is 9 July, but if there is a deficit of contributions from member states, we can resort to the reserve fund,” he said.

However, it was also established that in the event of recourse to the reserve fund, its replenishment “must not be made too late”.

“Because we cannot leave a region without a reserve and we don’t know how the situation may evolve, tomorrow we may resort to the same fund, so it is necessary that this fund is fed,” he added.

“One of the issues that our delegation raised is that [the situation in Mozambique] should serve as a lesson for the region, in the sense that we fine-tune our mechanisms so that when crises like that happen the region is not doing the same exercise of meetings and meetings to respond to it,” he said.

The head of Angolan diplomacy highlighted the mandatory nature of the contributions, as it is a matter of survival for the region.

“We all have to be aware that the region is under threat, with a crisis in Mozambique and we all have to respond promptly to this threat,” he said.

Over the next few days technical meetings of specialised sectors, namely defence and security, are scheduled to analyse practical issues, the minister said.

SADC is a sub-regional integration organisation made up of 16 member states, comprising Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, South Africa, Comoros, Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles, Tanzania, Malawi, Botswana and Mozambique, which currently holds the rotating presidency.

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