Central Bank

The statistical activities of the Bank of Mozambique are governed by the Organic Law of the Bank of Mozambique (Law 1/92), the Law on the National Statistics System (SEN) (Law 7/96), and the Foreign Exchange Law (Law 3/96).

Pursuant to Article 16(2) of the Organic Law of the Bank of Mozambique (BM) of January 3, 1992, “the central bank shall be responsible for centralizing and compiling such monetary, financial, and foreign exchange statistics as it deems necessary to pursue an efficient policy in those fields”; and paragraph (3) of the same article states that “it shall also be the responsibility of the BM to monitor activity on the monetary, financial, and foreign exchange markets.” Article 4 of the Law on the National Statistics System (Law 7/96)  defines the general objectives of the SEN regarding the compilation and dissemination of monetary statistics by the Bank of Mozambique.

Articles 37 and 38 of the Organic Law of the Bank of Mozambique establish:  (a) For purposes of this law, all credit institutions and others specified by law, with the exception of insurance companies and pension funds, shall be subject to supervision by the central bank; (b) It shall be the responsibility of the central bank to conduct inspections in institutions subject to its supervision pursuant to law (Article 39 of said Law). Accordingly, all credit, leasing, and other financial institutions subject to supervision by the Bank of Mozambique must submit analytical balance sheets to the Bank of Mozambique on a monthly basis (Article 74 of Law 15/99 Law on Credit Institutions and Financial Corporations).

According to Articles 106 and 107 of the Law on Credit Institutions (Law 15/99), the failure of depository corporations to provide information (monthly balance sheets and other information on the position of the institution in formats approved by the BM. within the established time limits shall be punishable by a fine.

All depository corporations and other financial institutions subject to BM supervision are required to publish their balance sheets on a quarterly basis and to submit their annual balance sheets, earnings statements, and report of the Board of Directors and independent auditors to the BM by April of each year, pursuant to Notice 6/99 of April 5, issued by the Governor of the Bank of Mozambique.

Because no specific mention is made in Law 1/92 (Organic Law of the Bank) of the Bank of Mozambique’s responsibility for compiling the balance of payments, a memorandum of statistical cooperation was signed on September 6, 2002 by the National Statistics Institute and the Bank of Mozambique, assigning the Bank of Mozambique responsibility for centralizing the compilation of the balance of payments as an integral part of the calculation of the national accounts by the National Statistics Institute. Pursuant to this memorandum, the Bank of Mozambique can require any public or private entity to provide it directly with the information necessary to compile the balance of payments.

Foreign trade statistics are compiled by the National Statistics Institute. Although it is not specifically mentioned that the National Statistics Institute is the authority responsible for compiling and disseminating foreign trade data, Article 6 of Law 7/96 assigns the National Statistics Institute the role of statistical authority responsible for carrying out all the necessary activities, such as conducting surveys for purposes of producing statistics.

The balance of payments data on external debt are compiled by the Ministry of Planning and Finance (multilateral debt) and by the Bank of Mozambique (bilateral debt). External debt data are disseminated by both institutions as a public service.

 Law 7/96 establishing the National Statistics System, which includes the Bank of Mozambique, governs the principle of statistical secrecy and confidentiality. Article 14  stresses that all individual statistical information collected by official statistics producing agencies within the National Statistics System is confidential and may not be identifiably included in any publications or provided to any individuals or entities; specific information on individuals or public or private enterprises may never be disclosed without written authorization from the respective representatives. Article 28 of this law refers explicitly to the violation of statistical secrecy: “Officials and employees of National Statistics System agencies who violate the principle of statistical secrecy shall be subject to disciplinary liability, without prejudice to civil or criminal liability.”

The letter accompanying surveys and other requests for statistical information notifies the enterprises or institutions that the requested information will be used in a strictly confidential manner, in the aggregate, and for purposes of compiling balance of payments statistics.

Article 74 of the Organic Law of the Bank of Mozambique, Article 56 of the Law on Financial Institutions, and the Personnel Manual of the Bank of Mozambique require employees of the Bank of Mozambique to observe bank secrecy. The penalties for employees who violate information confidentiality or commit any other type of infraction are defined in Article 102 of Law 15/99.

The public has access to the Organic Law of the Bank of Mozambique, the Law on the Banking System, and the Law on the National Statistics System  These laws are available in Portuguese at the Documentation and Information Center of the Bank of Mozambique. The Law on the National Statistics System is also available on the INE website.

b. Identification of internal Government Access to Data Before Release
None of the statistics compiled and disseminated by the Bank of Mozambique are accessible to any government agency before their release to the public.

c. Identification of Ministerial Commentary on the Occasion of Statistical Releases

There is no ministerial commentary on the data at the time of their release. The quality and consistency of the data in the monetary and foreign assistance survey are sometimes discussed and analyzed with the Ministry of Finance. The foreign trade data are also discussed with the National Statistics Institute. These discussions take place after the compilation of the statistical information.

d. Provision of Information about Revisions and Advance Notice of Major Changes in Methodology

There is no policy covering revision of the statistics in the monetary survey, although deviations, omissions and other potential sources of problems in the data are identified and investigated. Provisional data are identified as such in the published tables, but no mention is made of adjustments.

There is no established policy on revising the balance of payments statistics. The data are revised whenever new information becomes available. For quarterly data, revisions are made for the preceding quarter for inclusion in that quarter’s Prices and Financial Developments report, along with the preliminary data for that period. The preliminary annual data are prepared in March and included in the Bank of Mozambique’s annual report. The final revision of the annual balance of payments data occurs at the end of the first six months of the following year, without ruling out the possibility of any change that might occur outside that period. Users of balance of payments statistical data are not apprised of the policy or principles guiding revisions, the schedule for revisions of preliminary data, or the period to which they pertain. However, the user is always informed about the preliminary and/or final nature of the data. Moreover, no advance notice is given of substantial changes in the methodology, sources, and statistical techniques. Major changes in methodology, such as the conversion of the balance of payments data from BPM4 to BPM5 are announced concurrently with the release of the new statistics.