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Mozambique: Sharp Drop in Fuel Imports
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
7 August 2008
Posted to the web 7 August 2008
Maputo
The soaring international prices of liquid fuels have led to a sharp drop in Mozambique's fuel imports, according to data presented on Wednesday at a meeting of the Coordinating Council of the Ministry of Energy, held in the town of Songo, in Tete province.
Mozambique purchased 262,897.6 tonnes of fuel in the first six months of this year, compared with 301,371.6 tonnes in the same period of 2007. This is a decline of 12.8 per cent.
Despite this reduction, payments for imported fuel shot up by 39.8 per cent - rising from 186 million US dollars in the first six months of 2007 to 260 million dollars in the first half of this year.
Recommendations from the meeting are for people to use public transport or share private cars in order to save fuel. The Energy Ministry also urges a reduction in the practice of sports that call for the use of large quantities of fuel - however there is as yet no suggestion that any form of car racing should be banned.
The meeting also discussed production of electricity, and the report on this issue showed a decrease in production from 8,185,235 megawatt hours (MWh) in the first half of 2007, to 6,906,448 MWh for the same period this year. However, this was due solely to the rehabilitation work on the Apollo substation in South Africa, which reduced the export of electricity from the Cahora Bassa dam to South Africa.
The high cost of fuel has dramatically affected the fishing industry. Because of the high price of diesel, of the 59 boats licensed to fish for prawns, only 51 renewed their licenses this year - despite sharp cuts in the fuel tax paid by fishing vessels.
Fisheries production had already been falling. In 2007 there were declines in the production of prawns, gamba (deep water prawns), and kapenta (a fresh water species, fished on lake Cahora Bassa and exported to Zimbabwe).
The decline is not necessarily bad news, since in recent years there have been repeated warnings that the main prawn fishing grounds, the Sofala Bank, are being over-fished, and the Fisheries Ministry has recognised the need to reduce fishing effort in order to preserve stocks.
But Mozambique also faces the menace of illegal fishing. According to Ivone Licucha, the National Director of Fisheries Administration, the country loses some 38 million dollars a year because of unlicensed vessels plundering its resources.
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Licucha told the Maputo daily "Noticias" that her Ministry has approached foreign partners for the funds required to purchase vessels that can patrol the country's 2,700 kilometres of coastline. But the amount required is 80 million US dollars which has so far not been forthcoming.
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| Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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