Mozambique: Protesters block N4 highway access to capital with fuel tanker

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Mozambique: Protesters block N4 highway access to capital with fuel tanker

2:47 CAT | 29 Jan 2025

Photo: Lusa

The N4 motorway access to Maputo, the main entrance to the Mozambican capital and the link to the South African border, is completely blocked by protesters, who are challenging the toll collection by using a fuel tanker against the police.

In the early morning, the lorry was blocked after 07:00 local time (two hours earlier in Lisbon) by the protesters, mainly hauliers immobilised on the road and under threat of being set on fire if the police forced the road to be unblocked.

“We’re demonstrating and they’re coming with tear gas and bullets (…) we’re leaving this vehicle there to defend ourselves (…) we’re tired, we’re asking them to sort it out,” explained Nucha Arminda, while a strong contingent of police, with armoured vehicles from the Rapid Intervention Unit and riot squads, positioned themselves between the demonstrators and the toll plaza, with dozens of vehicles, including lorries, blocked, and others trying to turn back.

The issue is the absence of tolls on the road, operated by South African company TRAC, in recent weeks due to the post-election demonstrations, which resumed on Thursday.

“We don’t accept tolls. We don’t want to pay tolls for three months, and when they resume, let them lower the prices,” said Erisaldo Pedro, as the police approached at intervals to try to negotiate with the dozens of demonstrators to get the lorry out and the road unblocked, without success.

At around 12:15 p.m., the police fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse another roadblock a few hundred metres from the cut near the toll plaza.

“We don’t want any more tolls. This toll doesn’t exist,” retorted Sansão Basima, who joined the protest.

Since the resumption of tolls on the N4, which runs for more than 90 kilometres between Maputo and the border at Ressano Garcia, a structural route for South African ore exports, traffic on the road has been restricted by protests and motorists forcing the gates to pass without paying, which led the concessionaire TRAC to install chains next to the payment booths.

In December, the then-presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane called for tolls not to be paid throughout the country. Following the destruction and vandalisation of some toll booths, several were closed, including those of TRAC.

Meanwhile, in a document published on 21 January, with 30 measures he is demanding for the next 100 days, Venâncio Mondlane, who does not recognise the official results of the general elections on 9 October, once again demanded that tolls not be charged throughout the country.

“On the N4, the tolls, given their lifespan, have been profitable in relation to the investment made,” he says in the document, demanding the extension of the non-payment of tolls during this period, also claiming that on several toll roads in the country “there was no public consultation” on this charge and “the principle of the alternative route was not respected”.

According to the Decide electoral platform, a non-governmental organisation that monitors electoral processes in Mozambique, at least 315 people have died in the post-election protests, including around two dozen minors, and at least 750 people have been shot.

Source: Lusa