Police on Wednesday told the public not to do anything to unsettle
"harmonious coexistence" in the war-scarred former Portuguese colony.
Fishing boats sit beneath the skyline of Mozambique's capital Maputo, April 15, 2016.
Mozambican security forces deployed on the streets of the capital Maputo on Thursday after rumours of planned anti-government demonstrations circulated on social media, witnesses said.
Several anonymous messages spread via SMS and Whatsapp
said groups were planning to march on Friday against government
corruption, in particular secret borrowing that could cripple the
economy in one of the world's poorest countries.
Armoured
vehicles packed with police armed with automatic weapons were stationed
on major street corners although there was no sign of unrest, two
witnesses told Reuters.
Police on Wednesday told the public not to do anything to unsettle "harmonious coexistence" in the war-scarred former Portuguese colony.
"We will not tolerate any conduct that undermines the order, security and public tranquillity," a police statement said.
At
the root of the public anger is as much as $1.35 billion in loans taken
out in secret by state companies, one of which is owned by the interior
and defence ministries and state security agency.
On Thursday, Britain followed the IMF and World Bank in suspending aid payments in light of a "serious breach of trust" created by the recently disclosed borrowing, which analysts say could ultimately trigger a debt default.
Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario
told a news conference that total foreign debt now stood at $9.89
billion, an increase of $250 million from previous estimates that takes
total external borrowing to around 80 percent of GDP.
According to the AIM state news agency, Rosario also said that information on the loans "should
have been shared in good time with the Mozambican people and with the
international cooperation partners, including the IMF and the World
Bank".
He blamed the previous administration of President Armando Guebuza for
failing to come clean on the extent of foreign borrowing, as well as
political tensions after Guebuza stepped down last year.
Mozambique's
currency, the metical, plunged more than 4 percent amid concerns the
aid withdrawal could contribute to an already yawning current account
deficit and even hinder Maputo's ambitions to develop vast off-shore
gas-fields.
The metical had fallen to 55 to the
dollar by 1031 GMT, close to a lifetime low of 58.34 hit in late
November, according to Thomson Reuters data.
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