Maputo — The rioting last week in Maputo and the neighbouring city of Matola caused losses estimated at 15 million meticais (about 411,000 US dollars) to the Mozambican electricity company, EDM, and to fuel distributors, according to Energy Minister Salvador Namburete.

Interviewed by the independent television station STV, Namburete said the rioters had vandalized EDM branches, transformer posts and vehicles, and torn down electricity cables. Two petrol stations were looted, one of which was set on fire.

As for the recent increase in the price of electricity, supposedly one of the causes of the riots, Namburete said the increase was justified by the high costs of producing electricity and the need to recover the investments made by EDM in rural electrification. He pointed out that electrifying the rural districts is costing around 3.5 billion meticais (about 96 million US dollars) a year.

Furthermore, the construction of a new power line from Tete province to Maputo will cost 1.8 billion dollars. The current line from the Cahora Bassa dam in Tete goes, not to Maputo, but to South Africa (the major purchaser of Cahara Bassa power). The power that EDM imports from South Africa to supply southern Mozambique is counted as Cahora Bassa power, but is transported along a line belonging to the South African electricity company, Eskom, for which EDM pays a rental.

"Cahora Bassa will only truly be ours once we have made the 1.8 billion dollar investment in the Tete-Maputo line", Namburete stressed. This was a top priority, he said, and one purpose of the price increase was to raise money for this investment.

Namburete added that, even with the price rise, electricity in Mozambique remains cheaper than in some other southern African countries.

The Minister also denied claims that the government has abandoned biofuels. He pointed to a project in Manica province which is processing oil from seeds of the jatropha shrub, and said that in the near future units producing biodiesel will be set up in Niassa and Inhambane provinces.

"We have never abandoned biofuels", Namburete said, "we are continuing to work, and we have approved a strategy to give the due directives to investors".

Asked when biofuels would be ready to start replacing imported fossil fuels, Namburete said that jatropha takes five years to grow to maturity, and planting on any significant scale did not begin until 2006-2007. He promised that, as the crops become available, the fuel they provide will be used.

The Minister of Industry and Trade, Antonio Fernando, told STV that rioters had wrecked 13 buses belonging to the Maputo bus company, TPM. A calculation of how many people fit into a TPM bus and how many trips each bus makes per day, shows that the riots deprived 23,400 passengers a day of the cheapest form of transport in the city, forcing them to use the more expensive, privately-owned minibuses, known as "chapas".

The riots forced the suspension of rail services in Maputo for two days, and Fernando put the costs of this stoppage at 500,000 dollars.

He added that the destruction of shops, warehouses and other establishments has meant the loss of around 4,000 jobs, directly affecting around 20,000 people (given that the average Mozambican household has five members).

Where shops were destroyed, local people would have to travel further to make their purchases. Thus what was supposed to be a protest against the cost of living "in reality has only complicated matters still further", said Fernando.

As for the price of bread, another alleged trigger to the riots, Fernando stressed that the government is already indirectly subsidizing bread, through scrapping import duties and Value Added Tax (VAT) on wheat and flour. That was 46 million dollars in taxes per year that the treasury was not receiving, which would be enough to build ten new secondary schools.

As for the plan to reduce wheat imports, by mixing cassava flour with wheat flour in the production of bread, Fernando said this is pressing ahead, but admitted that so far only a few bakeries are using cassava flour.