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Mozambique: Passengers Claim Shortage of Transport
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
14 March 2008
Posted to the web 14 March 2008
Maputo
Passengers in Maputo are complaining of a shortage of the privately owned minibuses (colloquially known as "chapas"), that provide much of the capital's transport.
In recent days, long queues have built up at the bus stops used by chapas. "We have been here since about 05:00am. His classes started at 6:30am. Now it is 6:55am and we are still waiting for the chapa", one woman who was accompanying her son to school told AIM in the outer Maputo neighbourhood of Magoanine on Thursday.
This situation is not exclusive to Magoanine. All over the city, one now finds people in long queues waiting for the minibuses, not only during peak hours, but all day long. Taking advantage of the situation, some owners of pick-up trucks have taken to running unlicensed and uninsured passenger services. Their vehicles are overcrowded and are a clear menace to the lives of the people using them.
Commenting on the alleged reduction in the number of chapas, the chairperson of the Federation of Road Transport Associations (FEMATRO), Rogerio Manuel, simply denied it. He claimed that there had been no reduction in the number of vehicles in the streets, and then added "probably the reduction that people talk about is caused by breakdowns in some vehicles"
This shortage of transport started days after the government decided to suspend the promised increase in minibus fares, pledging instead to compensate the chapa owners for the rise in fuel prices.
Originally, the government had agreed to an increase in fares of up to 50 per cent, but withdrew this after serious rioting in Maputo on 5 February. The fares were frozen at their previous level, and a fuel subsidy for chapas was introduced.
The government began paying the subsidy on 3 March, at the rate of 4.35 meticais (18 US cents) per litre of diesel used. But many chapa owners are unable to claim the subsidy, either because they are unlicensed (and therefore operating illegally), or because they have not paid their taxes for 2007.
This could explain why some people have simply parked their vehicles. Possibly they no longer regard the business as profitable enough.
One recent study on Maputo passenger transport showed that, of a total of 2,100 vehicles in the streets of the city, only 1,473 are legally registered, which means that 627 of them cannot benefit from the fuel subsidy until they first obtain a licence.
Payments of the subsidy are going very slowly. According to Friday's issue of the independent newsheet, it was thought that 3,600 chapas in Maputo and the neighbouring city of Matola would qualify for the subidy, bur so far payments have been made to just 130 chapa owners.
The government is channeling the money through FEMATRO, which transfers it to the bank accounts of the chapa owners - but only after their tax situation has been regularized.
To obtain the subsidy, Manuel commented, the chapa owner "must first go the Finance Department, to obtain a declaration confirming that he has paid his 2007 taxes. That declaration has then to go to Fematro, and automatically FEMATRO transfers the money to the transport operators".
Manuel said FEMATRO found that most chapa owners had not yet applied for the diesel subsidy, and could only conclude that taxes (or the non-payment of them) were the problem.
Chapa owners also complain that the Finance Ministry does not accept their declarations of how much profit they made last year. Manuel said the transporters complain that the ministry "charges whatever it likes. A further question raised is that there are transporters who owe three months taxes. What happens is that they are charged those three months plus a fine of 100 per cent. So they say they prefer to do without the fuel subsidy, and continue to work without paying taxes".
FEMATRO met on Thursday with officials from the Transport and Finance Ministries to discuss ways to overcome these problems. The chapa owners want a simplified tax system, with a flat rate of tax charged depending only on the size of the vehicle used. A change to the tax legislation that will allow this has been deposited with the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, and could be approved in the current parliamentary sitting.
Manuel promised that any transport shortage will soon be solved, because FEMATRO will receive eighty 30 seat mini-buses as part of a programme financed by the Transport Ministry.
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As for public transport, the publicly owned Maputo bus company, TPM, said last month that it needs an extra 100 to 150 buses with a capacity of more than 100 passengers each to cater for passengers' needs in Maputo and Matola. Currently, TPM has no more than 40 buses operational at any one time - and this shortage of publicly-owned vehicles is clearly a determinant factor in the current crisis.
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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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