Bus fares rise 25% in Nampula province, Mozambique – AIM report

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Bus fares rise 25% in Nampula province, Mozambique – AIM report

7:25 CAT | 05 Apr 2017

itsalifeofleavinghome.wordpress (File photo) / Passengers inside a 'Chapa' on their way to Ilha de Moçambique

The government of the northern Mozambican province of Nampula has approved a 25 per cent increase in the fares charged by the minibuses that provide passenger transport between district capitals.

The increase, approved at a provincial government meeting last Friday, means that fares will now be charged on the basis of 1.25 meticais (slightly less than two US cents) per kilometre, instead of the old rate lof one metical per kilometre.

According to the spokesperson for the provincial government, Agostinho Zacarias, transport operators will be allowed to charge the new fares, as soon as a joint statement is issued by the government and the Nampula Transport Association (ASTRA).

The increase means, for instance, that the fare for a journey from Nampula city to the coastal district of Memba, a distance of 250 kilometres, rises from 250 to 313 meticais. The short hop from Nampula to Marretane, which uses to cost 20 meticais, now riese to 25 meticais.

Zacarias said the fare increase is due to successive rises in the price of fuel, as well as the general wear and tear of the vehicles, caused by the coor condition of the roads. The rise had been negotiated with ASTRA, he added. The inter-district buses do not enjoy the subsidy on diesel which the government pays to urban passenger transport operators.

Even if there is another increase in the fuel price in the near future, there will be no further rise in the fares for inter-district journeys, Zacarias said.

Passengers who spoke to AIM were unhappy about the increase, and claimed that, even under the old system, they were “robbed”. One of them, Faguir Marua, pointed out that the journey from Nampula to Nacala is slightly less than 190 kiklometres, “but we are charged 200 meticais instead of 190. It’s 90 kilometres from Nampula to Namialo, but we pay 100 meticais. I can’t imagine what will become of us now”.

There have been two recent rises in the price of fuel, in October and in March. Together they brought the price of petrol from 47.52 to 56.06 meticais a litre (an increase of 18 per cent), while diesel went up by 41 per cent, from 36.81 to 51.89 meticais a litre.

The current government inherited a policy of general fuel subsidies from its predecessor. This meant that the price paid by motorists at the pumps was substantially less than the price paid by fuel distribution companies on the world market. The government promised to pay the companies the difference – but by mid-March it owed the companies 70 million dollars.

The government intends to aboliosh the subsidy altogether, reverting to a method (abandoned by the previous government) of reviewing fuel prices every month, and changing them whenever import prices or the exchange rate of the metical vary in either direction by more than three per cent.

Source: AIM