Mozambique 4 March: Can things only get better?
Good afternoon. The happy news that broke on Wednesday evening that Jorge Khalau had been sacked as chief of Mozambique’s police force is tempered today by doubts about his successor. Julio dos Santos Jane was on nobody’s short-list except Nyusi’s, it seems - but analysts told Zitamar today that the appointment of a military man head up the police reflects the fact that Mozambique is a country at war.
SEE: Mozambique police chief Jorge Khalau sacked
SEE: Mozambique appoints military commander to lead police force
The delight at Khalau’s removal was also tempered by recognition of the scale of the challenge of untangling the organised crime webs within the police force itself - assuming that is something that the new man wants to do. Sadly, corruption is a thread running through much of Mozambican public life - and a new report released this week gave Mozambique a score of zero out of 100 for its effectiveness in implementing laws outlawing bribing public officials.
SEE: Mozambique scores zero for fighting public corruption
The combination of undeclared civil war, the grip of organised crime, and widespread corruption does not make Mozambique an attractive place for foreign investors to come. The investment promotion agency CPI reportedly put out figures this week showing FDI was down 23.6% in 2015 versus the year before, which feels like a conservative estimate.
Investors who are already here, however, are in many cases doubling down on their investment - betting, perhaps, that things can only get better. South Africa’s Nedbank today said it expects to take majority control of Banco Único later this year - which has apparently grown in value 45% since Nedbank first took a slice of it almost three years ago.
SEE: South Africa’s Nedbank to take over Banco Único this year
There was good news and bad news for the Tete-Nacala rail line this week, but mainly bad news for those who live alongside it. Nampula-based online newspaper @Verdade is reporting today that a passenger train came off the rails yesterday morning, injuring three people. It is unclear so far what is the state of the line.
When it does get up and running again, it will benefit from 100 new grain wagons that the northern corridor development company is leasing from a South African consortium. The deal should provide a boost for Nacala as an import terminal for Malawi, which currently relies heavily on Dar es Salaam, much further away.
SEE: Nacala corridor signs $8m rolling stock deal; port tender delayed
Zitamar is perhaps the world’s only news outlet not to have reported on the fragment of an aeroplane that could be the missing Malaysian Airways MH370 that was found off Vilankulo last week - though Zitamar editor Tom Bowker interviewed the man who found the piece of plane for the Associated Press yesterday.
Zitamar did report on something else that has washed up on Mozambique’s shores from Asia - a strain of mosquito known for carrying viruses including dengue fever and, perhaps more worryingly, the zika virus that has spread across southern and central America over the last few months. Zika has not yet been identified in Mozambique, though - and long may that remain the case.
SEE: Zika- and dengue-carrying ‘Asian tiger’ mosquito found in Mozambique
Have a great weekend.