Maputo, 28 Apr (AIM) – The Mozambican Minister of Transport and Logistics, João Matlombe, has revealed that the government has hired a consultant who will be responsible for monitoring the purchase of shares in the publicly-owned Mozambique Airlines (LAM).
The companies ordered by the government to buy LAM shares are the three reasonably healthy public companies, Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), which operates the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi; the rail and port company, CFM; and the insurance company EMOSE.
According to Matlombe, who was speaking on the sidelines of the ceremony in which three new locomotives acquired by CFM were inaugurated in Maputo, “all the companies have already met in a General Meeting, where they approved the acquisition of shares in LAM. The companies have analyzed the business plan, they have a consultant whom the companies have hired and who is assisting the companies themselves in implementing the investment plan in LAM.”
However, the minister did not mention the name of the consultant who will be responsible for the process.
Matlombe believes that the most important thing is to avoid the occurrence of contagion during the investment.
“Secondly and more importantly, the companies will not allocate resources without a guarantee of repayment. This is the work that is being done, from a formal point of view”, he added.
According to the minister, LAM must continue to do the work and guarantee essential services, “but at the moment we’re improving the company’s performance. The crisis situation of only two aircraft operating was solved, and we’re now working with four aircraft. In the next few days, we’re going to increase the number of aircraft to six.”
LAM has acquired a bad reputation for cancelling or delaying flights. Over the last year, LAM was under the management of the South African company, Fly Modern Ark (FMA), which was hired by the government to bring the company into profitability and rescue it from bankruptcy, a task in which it failed. The company lost the equivalent of 22.1 million dollars in 2021, seven million dollars in 2022, 62.2 million in 2023, and 35.7 million in 2024.
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