Mozambique: Renamo demands fresh elections in Marracuene
File photo: Presidency
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Monday appointed prominent economist Mateus Magala as the new Minister of Transport and Communications, replacing Janfar Abdulai, who was relieved of his duties earlier in the day.
As is usual with Presidential dispatches, no reason was given for the change. However, there has been significant discontent in Mozambican cities about the state of public transport. There are nowhere near enough buses, and a consignment of Chinese buses that run on natural gas, was kept off the roads for weeks for no plausible reason.
Magala has had a long career in the African Development Bank (ADB) where he rose to become Vice President for Corporate Services and Human Resources, a post he held from 2018 to this week. Magala’s earlier positions in the ADB include Principal Planning Economist and Strategist, Strategy Advisor, and ADB Resident Representative in Zimbabwe.
This is the second time that Nyusi has called on Magala to rescue a struggling Mozambican institution. The first was in 2015, when he was appointed chairperson of the Board of Directors, of the publicly owned electricity company, EDM. Magala is credited with greatly improving the performance of EDM.
He embarked on reforms to eliminate red tape at EDM, and established performance based contracts. While he was chairperson, EDM annual revenue rose from 150 million to 500 million dollars.
Nyusi also relieved Deputy Transport Minister Manuela Rebelo of her duties. Rebelo had held this position for 12 years. She was appointed by the former President, Armando Guebuza, and was one of the few Guebuza appointees whom Nyusi retained in the same post well into his second term of office.
No new Deputy Transport Minister has yet been appointed.
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