Mozambique: PM demands profitable airports – AIM report

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Mozambique: PM demands profitable airports – AIM report

9:03 CAT | 04 Feb 2022

Photo: Aeroportos de Moçambique

Mozambican Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario on Wednesday stressed that the country’s airports should be profitable in order to guarantee their economic sustainability.

He was speaking after swearing into office Americo Muchanga, as the new chairperson of the Mozambican Airports Company (ADM). He takes over from Emmanuel Chaves, who had headed the company since April 2013.

Rosario said that the resumption of economic activity around the world, as countries lift the restrictive measures imposed in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, “is an opportunity to relaunch the potential of our national airports, in order to attract more aviation operators”.

He challenged Muchanga to continue the investments currently under way to modernize and expand the airports, which will allow “a better response to the new dynamics f the country’s development”.

The mission of ADM, he added, is not only to guarantee modernization, but also to ensure the efficient and effective management of the airports and the air navigation services.

Muchanga said he is determined to work for the growth of the company and of civil aviation in Mozambique. He told reporters he is sure that the airport have human resources who can rise to the challenges laid down by the Prime Minister.

“I think I have the obligation of working with the senior staff already there so that we can create solutions, and make our company and our country grow”, he declared.

Asked how the airport in the northern city of Nacala can be revived, Muchanga ducked the question, saying that most of Mozambique’s airports could benefit from remodeling. “There’s special focus on any one airport”, he said. “We have to stress all of them, because they all contribute to the growth of civil aviation in the country”.

Inaugurated by the then President Armando Guebuza in 2014, Nacala airport has proved nothing but an expensive folly. No international airline has shown the slightest interest in flying to Nacala, and so the only company that operates scheduled flights to Nacala is Mozambique Airlines (LAM).

The airport can handle half a million passengers a year. Currently it is handling about 20,000. At this rate, it is quite impossible to pay off the debt incurred (a loan of 125 million dollars from

Worse still, the Brazilian company Odebrecht, which built the airport, admitted to paying bribes to unnamed Mozambican officials. Mozambique is one of 11 countries where Odebrecht admitted to paying bribes, after investigations by US and Brazilian prosecutors.

Source: AIM