The Malawian High Commissioner to Mozambique, Martin Kansichi, accused the Mozambican authorities of breaking agreements on making a “trial run” to prove the navigability of the Shire-Zambezi waterway, from the Indian Ocean to the Malawian inland port of Nsanje.Kansichi was responding to Mozambican Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi who on Tuesday said that Malawian vessels traveling up the Zambezi were impounded because they had no authorisation for the trip.Baloi insisted that, while Mozambique was not ruling out the Shire-Zambezi waterway project, any decision could only be taken after a full viability study, including an environmental impact assessment. Addressing a press conference at the Malawi High Commission, Kansichi said that Malawi agreed with this, but in January when a Malawian ministerial delegation visited Mozambique, “our Transport Minister said, while we are awaiting the feasibility study, can’t we have some trial run, a possibility to use a barge to see how navigable the river is?”.He said that during the meeting a “trial run” was indeed agreed, although the Mozambican side insisted that “appropriate steps and procedures must be followed, so specific requirements were given on how Malawi should proceed”.He claimed that when Malawi hired the company ETC-Marine to take barges loaded with fertiliser up the Zambezi, it followed those procedures. “To say Malawi did not follow procedures is untrue and probably provocative”, he declared. Then, when the barges were on the river, “we hear statements that were not made at the meeting”, he continued. “The Malawian delegation was not told that the previous arrangements were changed. What makes us confused is that we discover unilateral decisions are taken, as if Malawi has invaded Mozambique”.After the barges had been intercepted, said Kansichi, the Malawians tried to present their case to Mozambican Transport Minister Paulo Zucula and to Deputy Foreign Minister Eduardo Koloma, who told them “there will be no trial run until the studies are concluded. But we have the documents and we presented them”.“What is happening is something we don’t understand”, protested Kansichi. “People are being victimized. We are trying to find out why”. He was also indignant at the way the Mozambican police had confused the Malawian fertilizer with cocaine. He said the fertilizer was loaded onto trucks at Beira, and then driven to Marromeu, on the Zambezi, to be loaded onto the barges. Kansichi said the whole operation was supervised by Mozambican customs who sent two of their officers with the trucks to Marromeu. But at Marromeu the trucks were met by heavily armed police, who claimed they contained cocaine.“I can’t understand it”, said Kansichi. “Can’t they trust their own customs officers who accompanied the cargo to Marromeu?”Although Kansichi said he had documentary evidence proving that Malawi is in the right in this dispute, he did not distribute any documents to the reporters.Asked about Malawi’s unilateral decision to launch a tender for an oil pipeline from Beira to Malawi, and Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika’s suggestion for a railway from Lilongwe to Harare, running through the middle of the Mozambican province of Tete, Kansichi claimed that both proposals had already been discussed in the Mozambique-Malawi Joint Cooperation Commission.Mozambican officials deny this, and claim that the Mozambican authorities had not been consulted in advance over either proposal.As for the claim by the Malawian information minister Symon Vuwa Kaunda that fuel shortages in Malawi were caused by the ongoing repairs to the bridge over the Zambezi in Tete city, Kansichi said he could not comment because this was a “political” and not a “diplomatic” issue.
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