Mozambique: Malawi abandons Shire-Zambezi waterway project – AIM report

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Mozambique: Malawi abandons Shire-Zambezi waterway project – AIM report

8:22 CAT | 12 Nov 2020

The Shire is the largest river in Malawi. The river has been known as the Shiré or Chire River. It is the only outlet of Lake Malawi and flows into the Zambezi River in Mozambique.

Malawi has dropped its proposal to use the rivers Shire and Zambezi for its imports and exports, according to a report in the Maputo daily “Noticias”.

The decision follows a recent understanding between Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi and his Malawian counterpart, Lazarus Chakwera, on facilitating increased use of the Mozambican port and rail systems for Malawian trade.

The project to use the rivers was the brainchild of a previous Malawian President, Bingu wa Mutharika, who considered the “Shire-Zambezi Waterway” as key to lowering transport costs to the Indian Ocean.

Malawi even went as far as building a port at Nsanje, on the Shire, at a cost of twenty million US dollars. In October 2010 it actually held an inauguration ceremony attended by VIPs, including the then President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, and Zambia’s former president Rupiah Banda.

But Mutharika had not bothered to consult Mozambique, through whose territory the two rivers run. So the launch of the Nsanje inland port became a huge embarrassment when the Mozambican authorities blocked fertilizer laden barges that were en route to the ceremony.

The whole scenario was bizarre as the Mozambican government has always been crystal clear that its waterways can only be used after the correct steps have been taken, which include environmental impact assessments.

At the time, the then president of Mozambique, Armando Guebuza, explained that, while he understood Malawi’s desire to use the two rivers for its trade, that could only happen after viability and environmental studies.

These were undertaken – and showed that the Malawian proposal would have enormous environmental costs, particularly because it implied continually dredging the Zambezi. In 2015, the then Mozambican Transport Minister, Carlos Mesquita, pointed out “Mozambique would need to spend 100 million dollars to dredge the Zambezi and deepen the waters. This is not economically viable”.

The need for the Shire-Zambezi Waterway was always highly questionable, since all of Malawi’s trade can be handled comfortably by the Mozambican ports of Beira and Nacala and the railways that connect them to Malawi.

The new Malawian government seems to have come to terms with this reality, and accepts that the Mozambican ports are quite capable of dealing with Malawian exports and imports.

Nacala is generally regarded as the best deep water port on the east African coast, and its broad access channel never requires dredging. The Mozambican authorities assured their Malawian counterparts that they will continue the programme to rehabilitate and modernise Nacala, costed at around 300 million US dollars. This will raise the handling capacity of the port from 100,000 to 250,000 containers a year.

Source: AIM