Mozambique: Late arrival of ship blamed for LAM’s problems – AIM report

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Mozambique: Late arrival of ship blamed for LAM’s problems – AIM report

9:35 CAT | 12 Mar 2018

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Mozambican Transport Minister Carlos Mesquita on Thursday blamed the delay in the arrival of a ship carrying fuel for the problems which Mozambique Airlines (LAM) has faced in refuelling its aircraft in the north of the country.

Cited by the independent television station STV, Mesquita admitted that LAM does have debts, both to fuel companies and to suppliers of spare parts, but this was not why it had to reschedule or cancel flights over the past week.

Mesquita said the tanker carrying fuel unloaded in Maputo and then sailed north. There was a “breakdown in timing which created these constraints”, he added.

Oddly enough, anonymous sources in the fuel company BP, the normal supplier to LAM, denied that it had run out of jet fuel, thus contradicting both LAM and the Minister.

As for LAM’s debts, Mesquita said these were not the responsibility of the company’s present management, and had been contracted under the previous government (headed by President Armando Guebuza).

But he admitted “we have the responsibility to solve the problem of the debts, which are not just for fuel, but also the acquisition of accessories and spare parts. A platform is being duly organised, and there have been discussions with the banks with whom LAM is working to reschedule the debts”.

Source: AIM