Carpintarias informais na cidade de Maputo - papel, constrangimentos e o reflexo das políticas do Estado

Abstract

After the failure of industrialization strategies based on large projects in many developing countries (PVDs), the informal sector acquired new protagonists among development scholars and policy makers. But, no consensus has yet been reached. For some, the informal sector represents a threat to the survival of formal enterprises and an “obvious example of the insufficiency of policy” (De Vletter 1992b:8). For others, it is an important sector because it allows “the participation of women and the economically weak in income generation” (Parker et al. 1995:15). Regardless of the positions of each, what is certain is that “the informal sector is an integral part of economies” and any development strategy that intends to imprint greater dynamics on its functioning must carefully consider its positive and negative aspects (De Vletter 1992b: 10) . Aware of this, the Mozambican government, as of 1988, decided to: (i) encourage the creation of specialized financial institutions to support small businesses; (ii) create models for licensing small activities without observing formal bureaucracy; and (iii) “begin studies for the elaboration of a regulation for informal trade” (Notícias 23/08/97). In this way, the government intends to contribute to the transformation of informal agents and allow them to escape from marginality. Studies of the informal sector in other countries show that this transformation is hardly possible. Is this the same as for the informal sector in Maputo City? Given the diversity of the informal sector, this study does not provide a direct answer to this question. It only intends to shed some light, studying the carpentry subsector from four perspectives: (i) understanding of its role in the labor market and the relationships it has built with the rest of the economy; (ii) the economic importance of these relationships; (iii) the origins and manifestations of constraints in its operation; and (iv) the reflection of State policies in the subsector. For the discussion of these points, information was collected from 30 of the 34 carpenters in the Jorge Dimitrov and Luís Cabral neighborhoods, based on a survey. The answers were aggregated into groups and, whenever necessary, comparison was used to obtain answers to the questions asked. The study found that carpentry shops play an important role in the employment and training of labor and in the use of waste, eg coconut husks, cotton waste from textile factories, and scraps of wood sold in sawmills, which coincides with studies of informal businesses conducted in Ghana and Kenya. Carpenters also participate in the generation of direct and indirect income. Similar to what is generally highlighted in studies of the informal sector in other countries, informal carpentry in Maputo presents a bleak picture. Of the 30 carpenters interviewed, only one has all the machinery to carry out the activity, six have electricity and nine have all the tools. The investment in better physical structure conditions for carpentry is also not great. The best installations with a tent or house made of wood and zinc are found in only six carpenters.