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Mozambique: 'Dishonest' to Claim That HCB is Still in Foreign Hands
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
17 December 2007
Posted to the web 17 December 2007
Maputo
Those who claim that Mozambique is not in control of the Cahora Bassa dam, and that control over the dam operating company. HCB, has merely been switched from Portugal to Canada, are speaking dishonestly, accused Energy Minister Salvador Namburete, interviewed in the latest issue of the weekly paper "Domingo".
On 27 November the last documents were signed allowing the transfer of majority ownership of Cahora Bassa from Portugal to Mozambique. Under the new shareholder structure, the Mozambican state owns 85 per cent of the shares in HCB, while Portugal holds the remaining 15 per cent. Previously the Portuguese state owned 82 per cent of the shares.
The change was achieved by Portugal selling Mozambique 67 per cent of the shares in HCB for 700 million dollars. This money was raised from a consortium formed by the French bank CA Lyon and the Portuguese Investment Bank (BPI). The two banks will recoup their money from the sale of Cahora Bassa power.\
A Canadian company, Manitoba Hydro, will make regular visits to Cahora Bassa to supervise the operation and maintenance of the dam (thus calming any fears the banks may have about getting their money back). This has been enough for anti-government papers to claim that Cahora Bassa is now run by Canadians.
Namburete pointed out that HCB already has a longstanding partnership with Manitoba Hydro, and some Mozambican engineers are currently being trained in Canada by Manitoba Hydro.
Why this partnership ? "HCB may need technical advice in the area of maintenance or operation, and it may need assistance in training, as is happening now", said Namburete. "Manitoba will visit HCB when HCB asks it to, or when it thinks it should visit to check compliance with the maintenance programme. It can also visit HCB at the request of the banks. Nobody hands over 700 million dollars without any guarantee".
But the banks did not demand the prior signing of a contract between HCB and Manitoba Hydro before handing over the money. That contract is still being finalized, said Namburete, "and we don't see any of these phantoms that some journalists are seeing".
People who thought HCB was still being run by foreigners "refuse to see what everybody else sees", the Minister insisted. "The chairman of the HCB board is a Mozambican. Of the nine directors, seven are Mozambican and two are Portuguese. As for the board of the General Meeting, it was agreed that the chairperson should be Portuguese, but the Deputy Chairperson and the Secretary are Mozambican. On the supervisory board, we appoint that chairperson and the secretary".
The bulk of the HCB workforce is already Mozambican. Namburete said that HCB employs 604 people, of whom 31 are foreigners. In the key technical areas of engineering and maintenance, there are 19 Mozambican and four foreign workers.
Namburete said that HCB would no longer enjoy the fiscal exemptions of the past. As from 2008 it will pay a concession fee equal to 12 per cent of the companies gross revenue. It will also pay corporation tax on its profits (the standard rate is 32 per cent), and for the first time the shareholders will receive dividends.
On the very day that HCB passed into Mozambican ownership, the company paid 83.6 million meticais (about 3.5 million US dollars) in stamp tax to the treasury. "By our calculations, over the next 12 years, the Mozambican state will earn something like 1.5 billion dollars in taxes, dividends and concession fees from HCB", said Namburete.
Namburete was confident that HCB's revenue would rise from the 140 million dollars of 2006 to 270 million dollars this year and about 300 million dollars in 2008. Both the South African and Zimbabwean electricity companies, Eskom and ZESA, were now paying "close to market prices" for the power they purchased from HCB. Gone are the days when Eskom paid a very low, fixed tariff for HCB electricity.
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"The scarcity of power has determined a rise in the price of energy and we, as producers of energy, want to benefit from this", said the Minister.
I represent the part of Mozambicans who "deshonestly" say that Cahora Bassa is not ours yet. And the reason is simply that the debt is not yet completly paid off. We got a loan to pay Portugal, that was great, But we still need to pay off the loan we got. Is that thinking "deshonest"? We are not saying that C.B will never be ours, we are saying that until it is paid off is not ours. This is actually to keep in mind our commitment in paying off as soon as possible. Some could rejoyce that it is ours... [Read Full Text]
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| Copyright © 2007 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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