2 February 2008
Maputo — Mozambique's largest trade union federation, the OTM, has called for an extraordinary meeting of the Labour Consultative Council (CCT - the tripartite negotiating forum between the government, the employers' associations and the unions) to discuss fuel prices.
On 23 January, the Ministry of Energy decreed a 14 per cent increase in the price of diesel. Petrol went up by 8.1 per cent and kerosene, often regarded as the fuel of the poor, by 19 per cent..
In the course of a year, the price of petrol had risen by 46 per cent, of diesel by almost 90 per cent, and of kerosene by 61 per cent.
The latest fuel price rise was the main factor behind the increase in fares charged by the private minibuses that provide much of the passenger transport in Maputo and the neighbouring city of Matola. As from Tuesday, the fare for distances of up to five kilometres in the minibuses (known colloquially as "chapas") rises by 50 per cent, from five to 7.5 meticais. For distances longer than five kilometres, the fare rises by 33 per cent, from 7.5 to 10 meticais (at current exchange rates, there are about 24 meticais to the US dollar).
In a press release received by AIM on Saturday, the OTM warned that a worker on the minimum wage (1,665 meticais a month), who needs to catch a chapa to and from work, will now spend about 35 per cent of his wages on transport. That figure could double in the case of workers who need two bus rides to reach their workplace.
"If this worker has children who also need to use minibuses to go to school, one can easily estimate the impact that these increase have on the quality of his life", the OTM added.
The union federation declared that it is "deeply concerned at this situation which will have an extremely negative impact on the productive sector, and on the lives of workers in general".
The OTM did not believe that simply raising the price of fuel was an adequate response to increases in crude oil prices, and called on the government "to seek other measures that can mitigate the price increases and their consequent social impact".
Among the measures the OTM suggest are cutting the tax on fuel, subsidizing the fuel used in agriculture and passenger transport, making the technological charges that will allow the natural gas produced in Mozambique to be used more widely in transport, and speeding up the search for alternative fuels.
One serious problem is that most people have little option but to use the frequently overcrowded and unroadworthy chapas, because the publicly owned transport companies in the main cities have so few vehicles. Thus the Maputo bus company, TPM, has only 40 operational buses to cover the entire Maputo-Matola connurbation.
"The government should pay greater attention to urban public transport by acquiring more buses and ensuring that they are kept maintained", declares the OTM statement. This would have "a significant impact in regulating transport fares, and would lessen the financial pressure on the workers and the public in general".
The situation is so serious, the OTM urges, that it merits discussion in an extraordinary meeting of the CCT.
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