Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi today pointed to the modernization of telecommunications as essential in preventing and combating kidnappings and terrorism, noting the importance of public security for the country’s economic and social development.
Mozambique faces ‘a challenging context in terms of internal security, with the need to prevent and combat organized and transnational crime, such as kidnappings, vehicle theft, drug trafficking and trafficking in human beings, illegal immigration, smuggling of goods and terrorism’, said Nyusi.
The Mozambican head of state was speaking during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Ministry of the Interior’s Integrated Information Centre, a project supported by South Korea.
The center, he said, will promote the modernization of communications between the units of the Republic of Mozambique Police (PRM) and the National Public Security Service (Sensap), operations rooms, automation in the mobility of police vehicles and monitoring and control of traffic flow.
The initiative foresees the introduction of state-of-the-art digital technology, enabling, above all, the automatic verification of fingerprints by the National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic), added Filipe Nyusi.
‘It’s the beginning of a new era in information management and security emergencies in our country and it’s another stage in the relationship between Mozambique and Korea in the field of security of people, goods and infrastructure,’ said Nyusi.
The Mozambican President said that the project was conceived in 2015 and is the result of the government’s commitment to strengthening the guarantee of public order, security and tranquillity.
He said that the Ministry of the Interior’s Integrated Information Centre will have its central base in the country’s capital and hubs in the provinces of Maputo, in the central region, and Nampula, in the north, and is ‘evolutionary in nature’ with the aim of covering the entire national territory.
Among the main crime challenges in the country, the authorities have pointed to terrorism in Cabo Delgado, a province plagued by an armed insurgency since 2017, and kidnappings, which have resurfaced in recent years in the provincial capitals.
Until March, the Mozambican police had recorded a total of 185 cases of kidnapping and at least 288 people had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in this type of crime since 2011, the interior minister announced earlier.
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