Mozambique: Pigeon pea dispute causes $446,000 losses for Nacala port – official

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Mozambique: Pigeon pea dispute causes $446,000 losses for Nacala port – official

12:13 CAT | 28 Jan 2024

Photo: Lusa

The stoppages at the Mozambican port of Nacala, in the north of the country, following the dispute between RGL and the ETG conglomerate, have caused losses of almost half a million dollars, an official source told Lusa.

“For the port, there were direct implications in the order of US$446,000 (€410,000), in terms of revenue not collected because of the stoppages,” said Naimo Induna, director of the Port of Nacala, in an interview with Lusa on Friday.

At issue is an injunction filed by ETG against the months-long lawsuit filed by RGL, which accuses the conglomerate of having denounced its activity in India, an accusation that the prosecutors have since dismissed as unproven.

In October, the Nampula Provincial Court granted RGL an authorisation to seize ETG’s assets, including real estate and ships, and froze its bank accounts, applying bail of more than 3,871 million meticais ( €55.8 million).

This amount was secured with the seizure of cargo, namely pigeon peas produced in Mozambique and which ETG intended to export – just as RGL does – with the conglomerate accusing RGL in recent days of appropriating the cargo and intending to send it precisely to India.

According to the director of the Port of Nacala, the investigation notice from the Nampula Maritime Court was submitted at a time when the containers were already on the ship bound for India, forcing the port to unload a total of 620 containers, although 450 were involved.

“The stoppages really arose in this context, because first there was a need to understand the contexts and realise who was going to cover the costs [which in this case will be the claimant]. There was also a need to rework all the plans. All this meant paralysing and inefficient working days,” said Naimo Induna.

This Friday morning, at least 23 containers were inspected again and at least one bag of beans with the ETG logo was found.

“We can’t say that the product is from one party or another right now. The trial will enlighten us because in addition to the inspection there are other means of proof, such as documents (…). The ETG bag found is not enough to clarify things because we also found bags from other entities, which shows that they could be bags used by producers. (…) At the right time we will take a stand,” the presiding judge at the Nampula Maritime Court, Boliz Júlio, told the media in Nacala moments after the inspection.

While the case is being assessed, the authorities’ concern about this dispute, which has been going on since last year, is linked to the image of the Port of Nacala, warned the director of customs in Nacala.

“This situation has an impact on the normal functioning of customs. We are afraid that the shipping lines will give up using the Port of Nacala. If they do, this will have an impact on the number of ships using the port, which will have an impact on revenue. (…) It should be remembered that the port was recently rehabilitated,” João Saltiel told the media.

The volume of cargo handled at the Port of Nacala, the heart of the Mozambican province of Nampula, reached a record figure in 2023, rising from 2.7 million tonnes in 2022 to 3.1 million tonnes last year, following the rehabilitation and modernisation of the infrastructure.

The Mozambican public prosecutor’s office (PGR) considered the amount of the bail set by the local prosecution service in the dispute to be “absurd and astronomical” and ordered it to be shelved.

In an order dated 15 January, signed by deputy public prosecutor Amabelia Chuquela, from the department specialising in criminal matters, it was decided to “annul the decisions of the public prosecutor” of Nacala-Porto in the preparatory investigation of this case, which has been opposing the two groups for several months and which conditions the export of cowpeas and other agricultural products from that port town in the north of the country to India (which buys all the Mozambican production of those beans).

In the same order, to which Lusa had access on Friday, the PGR decides to “order the public prosecutor of the appropriate jurisdiction to revoke the measure of coercion of the defendants” and to “order that the investigation be closed” due to “the absence of a crime”, in a case that has been highly publicised internationally in recent months.

Lusa previously reported that the leader of ETG, Maheshkumar Raojibhai Patel, even appealed to Mozambican president Filipe Nyusi, in a letter dated 26 December, to intervene in the “pigeonpea saga”, in which he claimed to be the victim of expropriation of cargo and goods by competitor Royal Group Limitada (RGL).

Source: Lusa