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Mozambique: Cheap Diesel for Private Transport Operators
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
12 February 2008
Posted to the web 12 February 2008
Maputo
The Mozambican government has agreed to reduce the price of diesel used by the private minibus-taxis that supply much of the passenger transport in Maputo and the neighbouring city of Matola from the current price of 35.35 meticais to 31 meticais per litre (at current exchange rates there are about 24 meticais to the US dollar).
This fuel subsidy is intended to compensate the owners of the minibuses (known colloquially as "chapas") for last week's cancellation of increases in chapa fares of up to 50 per cent.
In response to increased price of refined fuels on the world market, the government increased the price of diesel on 23 January by 14 per cent, from 31.02 to 35.35 meticais a litre, triggering immediate protests by the private transport operators. In the subsequent negotiations between the Transport Ministry and the Federation of Road Transport Associations (FEMATRO), it was agreed that the fare for a journey of up five kilometres on a Maputo chapa would rise from five to 7.5 meticais, a 50 per cent increase, while the cost of a longer journey would rise by 33 per cent, from 7.5 to ten meticais.
The government thought this was a considerable victory, since FEMATRO had wanted much higher fares, claiming that a realistic fare would be about 19 meticais. The traveling public did not see a 50 per cent rise as a victory, and the day the new fares took effect, 5 February, Maputo was paralysed by a wave of rioting, in which four people lost their lives, and over 100 were injured seriously enough to need medical treatment.
Under pressure from the riots, the government and FEMATRO re-opened negotiations, and the fare increase was revoked. FEMATRO, however, demanded that the government find other ways to compensate the chapa owners.
The solution, formally approved at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday afternoon, was to bring the price of diesel for chapas back down to 31 meticais - essentially the price prior to 23 January. But it is far from clear how this will be implemented, without damaging the interests of fuel distribution companies.
Speaking to reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Transport Minister Antonio Mungwambe said the next step is to approve a mechanism whereby the chapa owners can benefit from this reduction. He said the government is prepared to implement the measure immediately, but everything depends on how the private transport operators organise themselves.
One way to implement the measure would be to set up a "transport fund" to assist in paying for chapa running costs, notably fuel. It is far from clear where the money for such a fund would come from, since Mungwambe insisted it would not be financed out of the state budget.
Money could not be simply handed over without any control. Mungwambe stressed "if we have to provide this benefit, then we must agree with them (the chapa owners) on how they will receive the benefit, and we must be certain that they are properly organised to receive the compensation. This is a public good and the transporters must be accountable for how it is used".
"We must be certain about how this benefit is to be managed so as to benefit all the transport operators covered", he added.
Should the price of diesel rise again, the compensation will also increase, explained Munguambe. But should the price drop below 31 meticais a litre, then the compensation mechanism will cease to have any effect.
The measure extends to all urban private passenger transport, and will keep the fares fixed at their current rates.
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Munguambe added that the government will have to take a series of other measures to change the entire transport system, to avoid the danger of the country slipping back into a subsidized economy.
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| Copyright © 2008 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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