According to the director-general of IRSEM, Jorge Gunji, the reintegration of 80,537 ex-military graduates under the peace process in Angola was established as a goal of the five-year period 2018-2022, but from 2018 to date only 10,736 ex-military personnel have been reintegrated.
"Initially" it was planned that the reintegration process of these ex-military personnel would absorb more than 39 billion kwanzas, but, noted the official, "over that time the country has been experiencing many changes."
"In the period from 2018 to this part, while reintegration actions were taking place under the aegis of the IRSEM, significant transformations occurred in the country and the reintegration process was experiencing a break in its dynamics," Jorge Gunji said at a press conference.
The "break in the dynamics" of the public institution, explained Gunji, "occurs at the same time that the decision is taken that this activity [reintegration of ex-military personnel] will be absorbed by the Integrated Program for Local Development and Combating Poverty [PIDLCP].
For the director of IRSEM, this decision, which emanates from presidential decree 140/18 of June 6, "has slowed down the protagonism of the institution, in relation to its social object, insofar as it is beginning to be left with fewer and fewer resources to continue to fulfill its fundamental mission."
Supporting the socio-economic and productive reintegration of ex-military graduates of the Armed Forces, in a massive and compulsory way, as a consequence of the implementation of peace process assumptions, constitutes the purpose of the IRSEM's creation.
Of the 10,736 ex-military personnel reintegrated since 2018, 2501 were reintegrated via unilateral IRSEM actions, 1802 via actions executed by the PIDLCP and 6433 via tractor distribution, he pointed out.
The IRSEM is a public institute endowed with legal personality, with administrative autonomy and is supervised by the Ministry of Social Action, Family and Women Promotion.
Jorge Gunji also reported that the four peace agreements, for the achievement of peace and national stability on April 4, 2002, namely Bicesse Agreements (Estoril, 1991), Lusaka Protocol (1994), Luena Memorandum of Understanding (2002) and the Namibe Memorandum of Understanding for Peace and Reconciliation in Cabinda (2006) produced 291,400 graduates of the Armed Forces of Angola.
The director general of the IRSEM, a body that marks this Wednesday 26 years of existence, also stressed that in the period from July to December 2020 there was a "re-updating of the controlled targets, a kind of life test of the target group.
"To assess the real figure of ex-military still to be reintegrated, given the prolonged period of management of the process, in which many of the ex-military may have changed their place of residence without registration of the provincial services of the IRSEM," he stressed.
"This situation may be behind some inflated figure in relation to that which actually awaits support from the program," Brigadier Jorge Gunji pointed out.
The celebrations for the 26th anniversary of the Institute for the Socio-professional Reintegration of Ex-Military personnel are being held under the theme "Productive Inclusion of Ex-Military Personnel - A Factor of Community Stability".
