At independence in 1975, the Frelimo government took over public administration and started transforming it. The public financial management (PFM) system was adapted to central planning and management of the economy in line with nationalist and Marxist-Leninist thinking. While collapse followed in the mid-1980s, the PFM system was gradually and systematically reformed towards more transparent and efficient mechanisms, and successful reforms did coincide with high growth rates for more than 20 years, after 1993. As the nationalist agenda became more forceful from around 2005–10, when the natural gas reserves in the Rovuma Basin were confirmed, natural resources became the main focus as a source of revenue — severe cracks in the PFM system started to emerge. The ‘hidden debt’ scandal in 2013–14, renewed conflict between Frelimo and Renamo from 2013, and the insurgency war in Cabo Delgado from 2017 put the PFM system under pressure and performance suffered accordingly. The chapter demonstrates how difficult it is to make institutional reforms work, within a structure of political and economic power that may not benefit from them, even in a context of a high degree of aid dependence.