Africa-Press – Mozambique. President Daniel Chapo said yesterday that there are “foxes” and “corrupt individuals” within state-owned Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM), with “conflicts of interest” that prevented the restructuring of the company in the first 100 days of his mandate.
When presenting the results of his first 100 days in government, the Mozambican head of state, Daniel Chapo, denounced people “with conflicts of interest” within LAM whose objective is to prevent the state-owned company from “having its own aircraft”.
“One of the impactful actions that we had planned for these 100 days was the acquisition of three aircraft for LAM. However, when we decided that we would have at least three aircraft available before 100 days, we discovered that within LAM we had been setting foxes to look after a chicken coop, or cats to look after rats,” the president said.
Daniel Chapo said that it is due to the interests of these people that LAM “continues to rent planes because they earn commissions by renting planes” and the government, which decided to restructure LAM, had to “reorient the process, since it is important to look after the interests of the people and not the interests of individuals or groups”.
On 5 February, the government authorised the sale of 91% of the state’s stake in LAM to state-owned companies, indicating that the amount earned would be used to acquire eight aircraft, actions aimed at restructuring the company within the scope of the 100 days of government.
The resolution approved by the Mozambican government determines that only three state-owned companies – Hidroelétrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique (CFM) and Empresa Moçambicana de Seguros (Emose) – may acquire the state’s stake in LAM.
The President of the Republic promised a broad restructuring of LAM, including human resources, promising Mozambicans a new phase for the flag carrier.
Daniel Chapo stated that in the context of the process for the acquisition of the three aircraft, “people left Mozambique, with money available from the new shareholders, and spent 15 days in Europe to inspect aircraft and returned to Mozambique saying that they had not managed to inspect a single aircraft, which makes no sense and is illogical”.
“When we discovered that a den of corruption was implanted within our company, (…) we decided to cancel the tender. We are going to restructure the company [LAM], clean it up with competent people who want to work for the Mozambican people,” Chapo concluded.
For several years, LAM has been facing operational problems related to a small fleet and lack of investment, with a number of non-fatal incidents attributed to poor aircraft maintenance.
The recurring problems at the flag carrier, including constant flight cancellations, led to the hiring of the South African company Fly Modern Ark (FMA).
The contract ended on September 12, 2024 and had been in force since April 2023, when FMA was called in to implement a strategy to revitalize the company after years of operational problems, which experts attributed to inefficient aircraft maintenance.
When FMA took over management of the company, it acknowledged that LAM had an estimated debt of around US$300 million (€269 million at current exchange rates).
Last week, the Mozambican Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) announced the opening of proceedings to investigate the details of the agreement signed between FMA and Mozambican entities to restructure the state-owned company LAM.
The MP also announced that the proceedings on alleged corruption schemes in ticket sales at LAM, with no defendants yet named, are also under investigation, with the aim of identifying the ownership of the automatic payment terminal machines used to sell tickets, determining the losses and identifying those responsible.
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