Mozambique 23 Sept: A tragic blow to the peace process
Good afternoon. Mozambique’s increasingly unpromising peace process was dealt another blow this week when a prominent Renamo politician in the town of Moatize, Tete province, was gunned down in broad daylight on the way home from the provincial assembly. Local Renamo officials are blaming agents of the ruling Frelimo party; the police say they are working on the case.
SEE: Mozambique opposition politician gunned down in Tete
Tete is one of the provinces Renamo wants to govern having done better than Frelimo there in the elections of 2014. Although the talks in Maputo have now moved on to questions of integrating Renamo personnel into the security forces, negotiators this week heard expert witness on the economic implications of further devolution of power in Mozambique - and from the country’s third-largest political party on how it thinks that devolution should happen.
SEE: Mozambique negotiators consider economic implications of Renamo demands
Moatize meanwhile is better known as Mozambique’s centre of coal production - and is known to locals as the ‘carbon city’. According to new plans being drawn up by those in charge of Mozambique’s mining and energy policy, the area could play host to a 1,200 MW coal-fired power plant that replaces at least four projects currently on the table, in a more co-ordinated fashion.
SEE: Mozambique to unify Tete coal power proposals in one mega-project
As we reported earlier in the week, coal miners who had been having second thoughts about their projects are now rushing back in as the price of the commodity bounces back. Further south along the border with Zimbabwe, investors in a gold mining company have also directed management not to sell the project in Manica despite being offered a 40% almost-instant profit on the company’s investment earlier this year.
SEE: Mozambique gold mine sale cancelled after shareholders protest
Back in the capital, a deal first revealed by Zitamar in February this year has finally gone through - bringing telecoms magnate Mo Ibrahim into Mozambique’s retail sector through a partnership with Portuguese group Sonae. The deal demonstrates that big African cities can remain attractive investments even when the rest of the country is not, according to analysts.
SEE: Mo Ibrahim teams up with Portuguese retail group in $6m Mozambique deal
And finally, a new route map for Maputo’s confusing (and often terrifying) public minibuses, known as chapas, has been released for consultation. An understanding of the system is in-built in most Maputenses by the time they reach adulthood but nevertheless the new map should help demystify the service and open it up to adventurous tourists and immigrants.
SEE: New ‘Mapa dos Chapas’ public transport map for Maputo
Have a great long weekend - Zitamar returns on Tuesday 27 September.