Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, on Friday in Maputo urged the government to find strategies to subsidise basic foods and bus fares for the majority of citizens, following Wednesday’s rise in the price of liquid fuels.
Addressing a press conference, Renamo national spokesperson Jose Manteigas said his party noted with great concern the latest rise of fuel prices, especially because they come at a time when a great many people have been laid off from their jobs as result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The increase in the price of fuel, of about 10 per cent, will worsen the deplorable cost of living that Mozambicans have to bear on a daily basis, in a country where unemployment rates are high and frightful. The latest national wage adjustment was not more than five per cent,” he pointed out.
Manteigas stressed that there is no record of the government dropping the prices for basic foods such as rice, sugar, bread and fish as well as bus fares, whenever fuel prices slump on the international market. “The move will undoubtedly impact food and transport prices,” he added.
Manteigas thus seemed unaware that the government does not set the price of foods such as rice, or fish, the prices of which vary considerably in shops and markets.
If fuel prices are high in Maputo city where the filling stations are just a few miles away from the port, Manteigas questioned what is going to happen to the other regions across the country.
But, as he should know by now, the practice is that fuel distribution companies can add their transport costs when calculating the final price of the fuel. This has been the case for many years, and means that in remote areas fuel costs substantially more than in the main ports of Maputo, Beira, Nacala or Pemba.
Manteigas claimed that the “the decision (to increase fuel prices) will turn the lives of many Mozambicans into a real nightmare.
“Mozambicans do not deserve to live eternally in hunger because of the mismanagement of taxes and of public assets, which prevents the saving of resources which should be used promptly in situations of crisis such as the increase in fuel prices on the international market”, he added.
Renamo’s call for food and transport subsidies is a demand to return to policies once followed by the previous government under former President Armando Guebuza, and which proved quite unsustainable.
The price rises were announced by the Energy Regulatory Authority (ARENE). The sharpest rise was for LPG cooking gas, which rose in price from 58.18 meticais (about 91 US cents, at current exchange rates) per kilo, to 71.02 meticais a kilo – an increase of almost exactly 22 per cent.
The price of petrol rose by 10.5 per cent, from 62.5 to 69.04 meticais a litre, while the litre of diesel that used to cost 57.45 meticais now costs 61.71 meticais – a rise of 7.4 per cent. The price of kerosene rose by 10.9 per cent, from 43.24 to 47.95 meticais a litre.
The last time Mozambican fuel prices were altered was in November 2020, when the prices of diesel, petrol and kerosene fell by about 2.5 per cent.
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