Mozambique: Toll gates on Maputo Ring Road open on 1 February – AIM report

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Mozambique: Toll gates on Maputo Ring Road open on 1 February – AIM report

10:11 CAT | 20 Jan 2022

– Four toll gates on the Maputo Ring Road will open on 1 February, according to an announcement from the company operating the Ring Road, Revimo.

In theory, Revimo is a private company – but when it was set up, 100 per cent of its capital was owned by a public body, the government’s Roads Fund. Subsequently, Revimo sold off 30 per cent of its shares – but failed to announce who bought them.

This fuelled conspiracy theories, according to which Revimo is just a smokescreen that will allow unnamed members of the government or of the ruling Frelimo party to become rich from the tolls charged.

The government appears to hope that ownership of Revimo will expand, since the company is now quoted on the Mozambique stock exchange.

The toll gates are located at Costa do Sol, Zintava, Cumbeza and Matola-Gare. The toll at each gate is 40 meticais (about 63 US cents at the current exchange rate) for light vehicles, minibuses and motorcycles. The toll for vans and buses is 140 meticais, and for heavier vehicles, with three or four axles, it is 380 meticais.

Heavy goods vehicles, with five or more axles, will pay 580 meticais every time they use the Ring Road.

Any vehicle that drives through more than one tollgate in the same direction on the Ring Road will only pay at the first gate. The receipt for that payment exempts the vehicle from further tolls.

Passenger transport vehicles enjoy a discount of 75 per cent. Thus the toll for a bus is 35 rather than 140 meticais. The minibuses (known as “chapas”) that provide much of Greater Maputo’s passenger transport will pay ten meticais instead of 40.

Light vehicles which use the Ring Road frequently will receive a discount. The discount for vehicles which make between 11 and 20 journeys along the road in a month is seven per cent, rising to 60 per cent for any light vehicle which makes more than 60 journeys in a month.

Assorted civil society bodies have protested at the new tolls, although by any rational standard the payment of less than a dollar to travel several dozen kilometres along a modern highway is a very modest sum.

Claims have been made that “the people” will suffer because of the tolls. But “the people” do not own cars. According to the latest Household Budget Survey, for 2019-2020, undertaken by the National Statistics Institute (INE), only 3.6 per cent of Mozambican households own cars, rising to 8.9 per cent in urban areas. Eight per cent of households own motorcycles.

In addition to the initial expense of buying a vehicle, car owners are already paying for fuel, lubricants, tyres, spare parts, insurance and compulsory annual tests. It is hard to see that the Ring Road tolls will make much difference.

Revimo is already running the suspension bridge over the Bay of Maputo, and the roads connecting it to the South African border. It also won the tenders to operate the highway from Beira to Zimbabwe, and three roads in Gaza province (Macia-Bilene, Macia-Chokwe, and Chokwe-Macarretane).

The government argues that tolls are necessary to ensure that the users of roads contribute towards their upkeep.