1 March 2008
Maputo — About 4,500 private minibuses providing urban passenger transport will be able to collect their fuel subsidy for February as from Monday.
The subsidy (which the government prefers to call "compensation") results from the riots of 5 February. That was the day when a minibus fare increase of up to 50 per cent, agreed between the government and the Federation of Road Transport Associations (FEMATRO), took effect in Maputo and the neighbouring city of Matola.
The owners of the minibuses (known as "chapas") argued they needed a fare rise to cope with the latest increase in the price of diesel, which went up by 14 per cent on 23 January, to 35.35 meticais (about 1.47 US dollars) per litre.
The reaction on the streets of Maputo was violent. Barricades were thrown up, stone throwing youths fought with the police, and life in much of the city ground to a halt. The government and FEMATRO promptly withdrew the fare increase, but FEMATRO demanded that the minibus owners should be compensated. The mechanism the government is using is a fuel subsidy, whereby the minibuses will receive their fuel at the old price of 31 meticais a litre.
So as from Monday each licensed chapa owner will receive 4.35 meticais for every litre of fuel used since 5 February. The money will be deposited in their bank accounts, regardless of whether the individuals concerned belong to a FEMATRO-affiliated association.
Announcing this decision at a Friday press conference, Transport Minister Antonio Mungwambe said "the process that will begin on Monday is national in scope. Given its complexity, problems may arise that cannot be solved immediately, but technical teams have already been mobilized to deal with this".
FEMATRO chairperson Rogerio Manuel told the reporters that by Thursday the government had transferred 11 million meticais (about 456,000 US dollars) to FEMATRO accounts. This is the estimated cost of the February subsidy in Maputo and Matola. There will be a further deposit for chapa operators in the other cities.
Mungwambe admitted that the fuel subsidy is a short term solution, but is not sustainable in the long run. The government would propose to the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, an amendment to the 2008 budget, in order to obtain the money for the subsidy. That, he warned, meant reducing the budgetary allocation to other areas of activity.
"Sustainable measures for the transport sector must be implemented", said Mungwambe. He pledged that the government would work with the transport operators and with civil society "so that this year we can find a solution to the problem of urban transport".
Only licensed minibus operators, who have paid their taxes, and who can produce receipts for the amount of fuel purchased, are eligible to receive the subsidy. The exclusion of the unlicensed chapas (believed to be about 20 per cent of the total) led to last Monday's agitation, when the great majority of Maputo and Matola chapas were taken off the roads (either because they sympathized with the plight of the unlicensed chapas, or because they were afraid their vehicles might be vandalized).
The authorities and FEMATRO are encouraging the unlicensed operators to regularise their situation so that they too can benefit from cheaper diesel. But this means that the Maputo and Matola city councils are retreating on an earlier decision that only minibuses that can seat 25 people would be licensed.
Many of the unlicensed operators have 15-seater vehicles. Indeed, they used to be licensed, but when their licenses expired, they were not renewed because the chapa owners had not acquired larger vehicles.
The municipal authorities have now relented. People in this situation can now renew their licences, even if they are still using 15 seater vehicles.
On the other hand, the municipal police have started to crack down on illegal behaviour by chapas. 18 minibuses were seized on Wednesday for a variety of offences, particularly "route shortening". Chapas are licensed to cover a particular route - frequently, however, they stop half way, obliging their passengers to pay for two journeys rather than one.
Both Mungwambe and Manuel appealed to an end to this form of cheating the passengers. "Now that there is an agreement on compensation for costs, we expect that the transporters will display courtesy and will treat their passengers decently", said the Minister.
Mungwambe said the subsidy of 4.35 meticais will be the same everywhere in the country - despite the different prices of fuel. For the official price of 35.35 meticais a litre only holds for the port cities where refined fuels are unloaded (Maputo, Matola, Beira and Nacala). Elsewhere, fuel distributors are allowed to add their transport costs when calculating the final price.
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