NEW NACALA PORT AND RAILWAY CONCLUDED BY DECEMBER

Mozambican Transport Minister Gabriel Muthisse has declared that the new port and coal terminal at Nacala-a-Velha, in the northern province of Nampula, and the railway linking it to the Moatize coal basin, will be concluded by December of this year. In a lengthy interview in Tuesday’s issue of the Maputo daily, Muthisse said that, once the port and railway are concluded, it will be possible to export 22 million tonnes of cargo through Nacala, of which 18 million tonnes will be coal. So far, coal exports from Moatize, in the western province of Tete, are all sent along the Sena railway line to the port of Beira. Even with an increase in handling capacity to 12 million tonnes a year, the Sena line cannot possible handle all the coal exports from Tete, which, in the medium term, could reach 100 million tonnes a year. Hence the construction of new lines. The railway from Moatize to Nacala, financed by the Brazilian mining company Vale, involves new stretches of line through Malawi. The railway will re-enter Mozambique at Entre-Lagos, in Niassa province, and the existing northern corridor, through Niassa and Nampula is being upgraded to deal with the coal traffic. Muthisse added that in 18 to 20 months there will be a new coal terminal in Beira, with the capacity to handle 30 million tonnes a year. An entirely new port will be built at Macuse on the coast of Zambezia province, and another new rail line will link it to Moatize. It too will be able to deal with 30 million tonnes of coal a year. “Our challenge in this area is not just having the facilities”, said Muthisse. “It is to guarantee that they are managed in an efficient and competitive way. We don’t want our national products to become uncompetitive because of our railways or our ports”. He warned that the tariffs for Mozambican ports and railways “must take into account those of the region and of the world. If our costs are higher than those in the region and the world, then we have to reduce our costs”. “We have to take international dynamics into account”, stressed the Minister, in order to allow the Mozambican rail and port systems to attract more cargo from other countries of the region, such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia and even the Democratic Republic of Congo. As for urban public transport, Muthisse stressed the need for “financial sustainability” – in other words, for fare rises. With fares that do not cover the costs of a bus company, the buses break down and are not repaired. “In the past, we injected 300 more buses into Maputo”, he recalled. 

“But three months later half the buses were off the roads. This wasn’t due to bad management, and it wasn’t due, as many people think, to the type of bus. It was because the fares charged in Maputo public transport are not enough to buy tyres and spare parts, or to guarantee maintenance of the buses we bought and allocated to the Maputo bus company (TPM)” Private transport operators faced similar financial problems. Fares on the privately owned minibuses (known as “chapas”) which provide much of the country’s urban passenger transport are pegged at seven meticais (about 23 US cents) for short distances, and nine meticais for longer distances. Muthisse asked whether such fares are enough to guarantee investment in this area, and to ensure that the “chapas” are “more comfortable, more convenient, more efficient, obey timetables and go at acceptable speeds”. Muthisse has also begun to take measures against transport companies that put the lives of their passengers at risk. He has suspended the licence of the private long distance bus company “Maning Nice” because of traffic accidents caused by its drivers.   Over the past three years, Maning Nice buses have been involved in seven accidents, resulting in 14 deaths. 94 other people were injured. The accidents were blamed on excessive speed. Since warnings seemed to have no effect, Muthisse opted to suspend the company’s licence as from 14 April. The company’s buses will only be allowed back on the roads after it has taken corrective measures to be discussed with and monitored by the road safety authorities.