Maputo, 15 Jun – The Mozambican Minister of Transport and Logistics, João Matlombe, believes that the country’s logistics competitiveness requires the openness of railway network to private operators.
According to the minister, who was speaking on Friday at a meeting in Maputo with the country’s Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA), logistics do not function with monopoly and the state-owned Ports and Railways of Mozambique (CFM) must have competing companies.
“We have consulted widely and we will open up access to the railways to different stakeholders. CFM will become one of several operators on the rail network rather than its sole operator, as part of a structural reform aimed at boosting and increasing the use of rail infrastructure, thereby reducing pressure on the road transport system”, he said.
Matlombe believes that “monopoly and inefficiency are damaging our economy, and we must carry out a structural reform within the sector. South Africa is already much further ahead in the process, while we continue to trail behind.”
“Work is under way to ensure that CFM focuses solely on infrastructure management and allows the private sector to enter operations, in order to improve productivity, create more opportunities for price negotiation, and provide a wider range of transport options for the import and export of goods”, he said.
For his part, Álvaro Massingue, CTA chairperson, called on the government to adopt a National Logistics Competitiveness Strategy to tackle the high logistics costs in the country, one of the biggest concerns for businesses.
“The private sector believes that the railways should play a more central role in long-haul freight transport, reducing logistics costs, easing road congestion and increasing the competitiveness of transport corridors”, he said.
According to Massingue, the country must improve its operational reliability, review tariffs and strengthen logistics capacity.
“If we can reduce costs, simplify procedures, improve connectivity, increase the predictability of services and strengthen multimodal integration, Mozambique could establish itself as the main logistics hub in the Southern Africa region”, he said.
Last March, CFM announced that it loses annually about 4.5 million US dollars as result of its policy of subsidizing passenger transport on the Limpopo, Goba, and Ressano Garcia lines, in the southern region. These are also the lines to Zimbabwe, Eswatini and South Africa. Passenger services on these lines run at a heavy loss.
The company recorded losses exceeding 40 million dollars following damage caused by heavy rains that affected the southern rail network last February. The floods affected the rail network of the Limpopo, Ressano Garcia, and Goba railway lines, going from Maputo to Zimbabwe, South Africa and Eswatini, respectively.
Am/
