Transmaritima boats abandoned in Quelimane

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Transmaritima boats abandoned in Quelimane

8:32 CAT | 15 Jan 2018

O País

Two cargo boats, owned by the company Transmaritima, have lain idle for the past three years in the central Mozambican port of Quelimane, reports the independent television station STV.

The boats were hired by the company Safetrade Mozambique with the purpose of transporting titanium-bearing heavy mineral sands exploited by the Chinese firm Africa Great Wall Mining, in the Zambezia district of Chinde.

But this never happened and the boats have just been left moored to a jetty in Quelimane fishing port, where they are obstructing fishing vessels.

Transmaritima is an incorporated company, in which the Mozambican state is the largest shareholder. It operates passenger and goods transport services in various of the country’s rivers, lakes and bays.

When STV asked the Transmaritima delegate in Quelimane, Antonio da Silva, why the boats, named “Indico I” and “Indico II”, were doing nothing, he was unable to provide a convincing argument.

The contracts under which Safetrade Mozambique hired the two boats were signed in the Maputo offices of the Transmaritima Board of Directors, he said.

“That’s all we know”, added Silva. “Other explanations transcend our level of knowledge”. He believed the boats should have been returned to Maputo, but was quite incapable of explaining why they had remained for three years in Quelimane.

Currently six Transmaritima workers are looking after the boats. One of them, Catalao Olimpia, told STV that initially the boats were each manned by 12 workers. But two engineers died in Quelimane, while several other workers simply gave up and made their way back to Maputo by their own means.

The remaining workers are not being paid any wages, and Olimpia said approaches to the Transport Ministry have been fruitless.

“We are isolated”, he exclaimed. “We go to the Ministry, but they say they have nothing to do with us and they tell us to abandon the boats. We’re not going to abandon them until this matter is resolved”.

STV noted that the two vessels are not undergoing any maintenance, and so are gradually deteriorating.

Source: AIM