24 July 2008
Maputo — A group of Mozambican transport operators on Thursday physically prevented a new company from beginning its work, on the grounds that it is a foreign company competing with Mozambican businesses.
The company, PUTCO-Mozambique, intends to carry passengers from Maputo to the cities of Xai-Xai and Chokwe, in Gaza province. But the local operators blocked the path of the PUTCO buses with the own vehicles, forcing the new company to send its vehicles back to their terminal.
Interviewed by the private television station STV, a spokesperson for the company, David Chissano, insisted that it is Mozambican, and that it has acquired all the necessary licences from the Mozambican authorities to run routes from Maputo into Gaza. He could not understand why the other transporters were so upset.
It may well be the case that PUTCO-Mozambique has registered as a Mozambican company. But its parent company, PUTCO, is certainly South African, and uses the same logo that was painted on the buses in Maputo.
The rival transport operators protested that, although Mozambican buses can carry passengers from Maputo to Johannesburg, no Mozambican company is allowed to carry passengers from one point to another inside South Africa. So why should a South African company be allowed to operate on Mozambican domestic routes?
The Mozambicans also claimed that there are already plenty of vehicles that want to carry passengers from Maputo to Gaza. The problem is a shortage of clients. The Mozambican minibuses that carry passengers to Xai-Xai have had to reduce the number of trips they make because there are not enough customers willing to pay the current fares.
The Mozambican Federation of Road Transport Associations (FEMATRO) told STV that it had no knowledge of the new PUTCO routes. Nobody from the company had contacted the Federation.
The obvious difference between PUTCO and the Mozambican operators is that the former uses luxury coaches, while the latter depend on mini-buses. For passengers, a journey on board a PUTCO coach will be much more comfortable than a minibus. Economies of scale might make it possible for PUTCO to charge less for a Maputo-Gaza ticket than the Mozambican operators do.
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