Mozambique: Fuel price increase in Mozambique “was inevitable” – PR

The Mozambican President recognized Thursday that it was inevitable to increase fuel prices, which are already in effect with 45% rises in diesel, underlining that they remain among the lowest in the region and requested that there be no “agitation.” “The fuel problem is not just Mozambique’s; it is the whole world’s. Wednesday we decided that we should increase prices because we also spent almost two months holding on to see if the war would end, so that we could live normally,” Daniel Chapo began explaining upon arriving in Tete, in the center of the country, for a working visit. In a meeting with the local population, he recalled that the Government had been “warning” over the last two months that it would “hold on until late April or early May,” depending on fuel stocks, before changing prices—which had gone over a year without increases, due to the conflict in the Middle East and repercussions on logistical chains.

With the arrival of ships “with new prices” and with a crisis installed in the market, involving closed stations, generalized lines, and activities paralyzing in the country due to lack of fuel, the scenario changed: “We have no choice but to change, so that these can also stabilize the supply at the gas stations and not continue to be sold on the black market, so that we can have fuel and continue living.” Still, he stressed that fuel prices in Mozambique, “even having increased, continue to be the lowest” in the region. “When we compare with Zimbabwe, compare with Malawi, compare with Zambia, compare with South Africa, we continue to have the lowest prices (…) Therefore, we cannot allow the enemies of development, the enemies of peace, the enemies of stability to bring rumors, bring misinformation, and be able to agitate the Mozambican people,” he added. “Let us concentrate on producing, because only by producing can this global crisis of war and fuel, which is happening all over the world, like covid, not affect us,” he said, appealing for national unity and cohesion.

As of today, the price of diesel rises 45.5% and gasoline 12.1% per liter in Mozambique, the Government announced, justifying the upward revision of fuels with the prices practiced at the international level. “For more than two months, the Government has been closely monitoring the evolution of the conflict in the Middle East and, as is general knowledge, this conflict triggered the rise in fuel prices at the international level and on the African continent; in the southern African region in particular, a generalized rise in prices has been verified,” the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Energy Regulatory Authority (Arene), Paulo da Graça, told journalists at the end of the Council of Ministers in Maputo on Wednesday night. A liter of gasoline now costs 93.69 meticais (€1.23), compared to the previous 83.57 meticais (€1.10). The price of diesel moves from 79.88 meticais (€1.06) to 116.25 meticais (€1.54), illuminating paraffin from 66.86 meticais (€0.87) to 97.56 meticais (€1.29), cooking gas from 86.05 meticais (€1.14) to 87.82 meticais (€1.15) per kilogram, and vehicle natural gas from 41.11 meticais (€0.54) to 52.73 meticais (€0.69) per liter, according to the new table already in effect.