Frantic attempts to buy up weekly paper in Maputo, Mozambique

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Frantic attempts to buy up weekly paper in Maputo, Mozambique

12:15 CAT | 27 Jan 2016

In file Club of Mozambique.

Tuesday’s issue of the Maputo weekly “Magazine Independente” (MI) suddenly became very scarce as attempts were made to buy up every copy being sold on the streets of the Mozambican capital.

The street sellers were very pleased by this sudden boom in business. Some of them told AIM that the buyer was paying 50 meticais (about 1.1 us dollars) or even more per copy – much more than the cover price of 30 meticais.

One seller in central Maputo, who identified himself as Moises, told AIM that by 09.30 he had sold all the copies he had of MI – and all to the same person. “He parked his car, and sounded his horn, I ran over and he asked me how many copies of MI I had”, said Moises, “I told him there were 40 and he bought them all for 50 meticais each”.

A second vendor, named Mario, told AIM he had the same experience of a client who wanted to buy every copy of the paper he had. He obliged and sold 50 copies of MI for 85 meticais each.

“I sold them to this person whose photo is on the front page of the paper”, he said. The photo he indicated is of Rogerio Manuel, chairperson of the Confederation of Mozambican Business Associations (CTA),

An AIM reporter eventually found a copy of MI at the bookshop in the Rovuma Hotel. He had to negotiate the price. The seller wanted to charge 50 meticais. “Today’s issue of the paper has gone up in price. It’s got some very hot news”, she said.

The reporter pointed out that the cover price is still 30 meticais, and refused to pay any more. She reluctantly accepted this.

When AIM contacted the editor of MI, Lourenco Jossias, he said he did not know why the paper was selling out in such record time. “I don’t know why there’s so great a demand. But it’s very good for us “, he said.

Buying up the paper seems an attempt to prevent the Maputo public from reading the main story. The front page headline declared “Minister obliges Rogerio Manuel to return seven million dollars”.

The Minister in question is Vitoria Diogo, the Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Security. Manuel not only chairs the CTA, but also owns 49 per cent of a company called CR Aviation, which in 2014 went into partnership with the National Social Security Institute (INSS).

The INSS signed a memorandum of understanding with CR Aviation, under which the INSS invested seven million US dollars in the company. The INSS was to acquire 15 per cent of the company, and part of the money was to be used to finance the acquisition of four light aircraft, plus the expenses of maintenance and inspection.

The justification for this operation was an INSS decision to diversity its portfolio of investments, and to support small and medium companies owned by Mozambican citizens.

The process of selling CR Aviation shares to the INSS has not yet begun and, according to MI, Diogo, appointed Labour Minister a year ago, discovered serious anomalies in the arrangement and has moved to quash the deal.

Anonymous sources cited by MI claimed that, at a meeting last week, Manuel asked for five years to return the money, a request which the INSS turned down.

Attempting to remove the paper from the streets has backfired, of course, and anybody who wants to read about the abortive CR Aviation/INSS deal will have no difficulty in finding the MI article reproduced in social media.

Source: AIM