Maputo, 20 Apr (AIM) – Over half of the 180 permanent workers at the Maragra Sugar Company, in the southern Mozambican district of Manhiça, may be dismissed in the next few days.
According to a report on Rádio Moçambique (RM), the dismissal is due to the restructuring of the workforce and a possible temporary closure of the company, following the damage of equipment and loss of sugar cane due to flooding on the Incomati river last February.
“The company is currently undergoing internal restructuring and we are studying the damage caused to the machinery”, said Filipe Raposo, executive director of Maragara. He added that the company “lost 95% of its sugar cane and the damages are estimated at around 30 million US dollars.”
However, Agriculture Minister Celso Correia guaranteed in March, when he visited the company, that there is enough sugar in Mozambique to supply domestic requirements, despite the flooding, and he promised to work with the sugar industry to draw up a reconstruction and modernisation plan. At the time Correia said nothing about possible redundancies at Maragra.
There are four other sugar plantations and mills in Mozambique – at Xinavane, in Mapuro province, and at Marromeu and Mafambisse in the central province of Sofala.
(AIM)
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