19 April 2006
Maputo — The privately-owned minibus taxis, which provide much of Maputo's passenger transport, decided to resume their activities in the capital and the adjoining city of Matola as from Wednesday morning after a 24 hour strike on Tuesday.
The strike ended following an agreement between the government's National Roads Administration (ANE) and the Mozambican Federation of Road Transport Associations (FEMATRO) on the tolls to be paid by passenger vehicles for use of the Maputo- South Africa motorway.
FEMATRO had claimed, as its justification for pulling vehicles off the roads, that the South African based consortium TRAC had reneged on an agreement reached in March. That agreement had been that the minibuses would enjoy a 40 per cent discount on the tolls as from 11 April.
TRAC, however, said that, for organisational reasons, it was not possible to introduce the discount until 1 May. Furthermore, a study it had undertaken into the impact of the discount, suggested that it should be set at 38 per cent.
Tuesday's agreement accepts that the discount will only take effect from 1 May, but that it will be 40 per cent. The toll for light vehicles (the category covering most of the minibuses) at the Maputo toll gate, after the increase that took effect on 1 March, is 17,500 meticais (about 70 US cents).
With a 40 per cent discount, the toll for the minibuses (known colloquially as "chapas") will be 10,500 meticais. With a 38 per cent discount, it would have been 10,850 meticais.
So the chapa owners have won 350 meticais (1.4 US cents) for each crossing of the toll gate. It will take a long time for this minuscule gain to wipe out the losses from an entire day without any fare income.
The chapa owners called their strike at very short notice, and with no explanation for the travelling public. Thus on Tuesday morning thousands of people went to their usual bus- stops, unaware of the strike. Some ended up walking ten kilometres or more to work.
The FEMATRO strike was another cruel illustration of the desperate shortage of public transport in Maputo, though the government has promised to import more buses for the public bus company, TPM.
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