Mozambique: Heavy goods vehicles want discount on Ring Road tolls

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Mozambique: Heavy goods vehicles want discount on Ring Road tolls

9:21 CAT | 24 Jan 2022

FILE PHOTO - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

The Federation of Mozambican Road Transporters (Fematro) has threatened that the price of goods carried by truck will increase, unless heavy goods vehicles are given a reduction at the toll gates that will come into operation on the Maputo Ring Road as from 1 February.

Interviewed by the independent television station STV, Baptista Macuvele, the Fematro deputy chairperson, said the toll will be added to the costs of the transporters, and should thus be passed on to the end consumers.

He made the extraordinary claim that the toll would push the price of salt up from ten meticais (about 16 US cents) a kilo to 12 or 13 meticais, which would be a rise of 20 or 30 per cent, But there is no honest way that a toll of 580 meticais, imposed on a truck weighing 30 or 40 tonnes could result in such an enormous price rise.

There are discounts – but only for passenger vehicles and for regular users of the road. Passenger transport vehicles enjoy a discount of 75 per cent. Thus the toll for a bus is 35 rather than 140 meticais. The minibuses (known as “chapas”) that provide much of Greater Maputo’s passenger transport will pay ten meticais instead of 40.

Light vehicles which use the Ring Road frequently will receive a discount. The discount for vehicles which make between 11 and 20 journeys along the road in a month is seven per cent, rising to 60 per cent for any light vehicle which makes more than 60 journeys in a month.

But the operator of the ring road, the company Revimo (mostly owned by the government’s Roads Fund) has no intention of offering a discount to trucks. Tolls are intended to raise funds for road maintenance and repair, and since it is heavy goods vehicles that cause the most damage to roads, they should bear a substantial share of the repair costs. It is also a longstanding government policy to shift goods transport from road to rail, wherever practicable.

Passenger transport operators told STV they had feared that the tolls would be much higher, and so were pleased at the discounts offered by Revimo.

A toll of ten meticais “will not suffocate our revenue”, said Masmodine Omar, representing the Maputo Provincial Cooperative of Transporters. He did, however, ask Revimo and the government to improve stretches of the Ring Road that are showing deterioration.

Various civil society bodies claim that the Ring Road tolls are illegal and unconstitutional, and have called for them to be scrapped. The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) is organizing a petition against the tolls, and there have even been suggestions that motorists should refuse to pay the tolls.

Source: AIM