Mozambique: Palma terror attack causes 95 million USD in losses – AIM report

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Mozambique: Palma terror attack causes 95 million USD in losses – AIM report

7:17 CAT | 22 Apr 2021

Palma, April, 5 2021. [ File photo: TVM]

The Confederation of Mozambican Business Associations (CTA) has recorded financial losses estimated at 95 million US dollars, after the terror attack of 24 March against the town of Palma, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

These losses include destruction of property, delayed deliveries, delayed payments and commodities in transit with no certainty of delivery.

Briefing reporters at a Maputo press conference on Tuesday to outline the preliminary results of the impact on the country’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), caused by the latest attack, the CTA chairperson, Agostinho Vuma, said nearly 410 companies and almost 56,000 jobs had been affected by terrorist attacks.

“Mocimboa da Praia district has been the worst hit, with nearly 40 per cent of the companies affected and 23 per cent of the jobs lost,” Vuma said, after separate meetings held with the French Ambassador to Mozambique, David Izzo, and the leadership of the French oil and gas company Total.

Among a wide variety of issues raised at the meetings, Vuma said, the CTA expressed profound concern with delays in payments by Total and its contractors which have become a nightmare for the Mozambican private sector. But Total said was working very hard to find a solution to the pending contracts, through the companies it has hired for service delivery.

Thus, the CTA and Total have agreed to set a task force which will map the pending payments and the goods which had been ordered from the companies hired.

On Wednesday, Vuma declared, the CTA will disseminate a data gathering plan to every company with pending payments so that through the task force matters can be settled as soon as possible. “At the meetings, the CTA entreated from Total a clear explanation about the commodities in transit and in warehouses to be delivered”, he said

Vuma has also played down speculation about a prospective pull out of Total logistics from Cabo Delgado to the French Indian Ocean possession of Mayotte. Both the Ambassador and the Total leadership assured the CTA that there is no other option for the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project operated by Total. Mayotte was meant to only serve as a health facility site, should there be any need for immediate evacuation of the staff, as Palma has no international license.

After the 24 March attack, Total withdrew all its staff from the Afungi Peninsula, some 15 kilometres from Palma town, where the consortium it heads plans to build the gas liquefaction plants. All work on the LNG project has ceased and there is no sign when – or indeed if – it will resume.

However, Vuma was confident that the French company will resume its activities. “The decision by Total to leave equipment at the site is a guarantee that they will resume and are not planning to relocate to other places such as Mayotte”, he said.

The French Ambassador, he added, told him that a France-Africa international investment forum is in preparation and on the sidelines of the meeting in May there will be a bilateral business forum between France and Mozambique.

Source: AIM