The Mozambican government, irritated at the apparently interminable negotiations with Portugal over the future of the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi, is considering taking unilateral measures to ensure Mozambican control over what is by far the country's largest source of energy, according to an article in this week's issue of the Sunday paper "Domingo".
Cahora Bassa was initially a colonial project - but it was completed after Mozambican independence. The company set up to run it, Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), is owned 82 per cent by Portugal and 18 per cent by Mozambique, a shareholding structure that has remained unaltered for quarter of a century.
The original plan was that, as the debts incurred in building the dam were paid off, so shares would be transferred from Portugal to Mozambique. Three years after the debt was paid, the dam would be under Mozambican control.
But this never happened because, during the war of destabilisation, the apartheid-backed Renamo rebels blew up hundreds of pylons on the transmission lines carrying electricity to HCB's largest client, the South Africa power utility, Eskom.
Only after the war had ended was it possible to repair the lines and resume the sale of energy to Eskom. By then HCB was deeply in debt to the Portuguese treasury, and successive Portuguese governments have refused to alter the ownership of the dam without dealing with the debt (usually given as around two billion US dollars) at the same time.
The Mozambican negotiators have been frustrated by the frequent changes of government in Lisbon. "Domingo"s anonymous source remarked that, whenever an agreement on Cahora Bassa seems close, everything goes back to square one, because the Portuguese government changes.
This happened when the Portuguese electorate threw out the Socialist Party government, headed by Antonio Guterres. It was replaced by a right wing coalition (but hardly "ultra-right" as claimed by "Domingo"'s source) under Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso.
But now Barroso has been packed off to Brussels to head the European Commission, and a new coalition government formed under Pedro Santana Lopes. The members of the coalition are the same parties, but Mozambique fears this will make no difference, and everything achieved in the negotiations with Durao Barroso's team will be lost.
"It's as if every Portuguese government acted for itself, and not in the name of the Portuguese state", remarked "Domingo"'s source. "It makes no sense that every time the government changes, all the pending dossiers on Cahora Bassa are dumped in the rubbish bin".
Normal international practice is that government changes do not lead to institutional amnesia. "There are questions which, if they are not brought to a conclusion during the term of office of one government, are continued under its successor, rather than starting everything all over again. But that's what we've had to do over Cahora Bassa", said "Domingo"'s source.
So what might the government do to ensure its goal of Mozambican control over the dam ? "Domingo"'s source raised two possibilities - one would be outright nationalisation of HCB, with no compensation. A somewhat milder possibility would be for Mozambique to offer Portugal a non-negotiable sum (but lower than the debt claimed by Lisbon) for a controlling interest in the dam.
"It makes no sense at all, and we cannot accept that, almost 30 years after Mozambican independence, Portugal still dictates the rules for how the energy generated at Cahora Bassa is used", declared "Domingo"'s source.
The "Domingo" article follows an editorial in a second Maputo weekly, "Zambeze", published on Thursday, calling for the nationalisation of HCB.
"Zambeze" editor Salomao Moyana wrote that nationalising Cahora Bassa was "a national imperative which all of Mozambican society should unconditionally support".
The Mozambican state gained nothing from the original "colonial type" agreements on the dam, said "Zambeze", and there was "an evident lack of interest on the part of the Portuguese government towards the case, and excessive and wearying tolerance on the part of the Mozambican government".
Mozambicans, continued the editorial "look powerlessly upon a gigantic undertaking in their territory, but which does not belong to them, and from which they do not draw the necessary dividends to mitigate absolute poverty and accelerate domestic growth".
How many friends did the Mozambican government fear it might lose by nationalising Cahora Bassa ? "Zambeze" thought that the Mozambican government would win more friends than it lost, even among Portuguese public opinion, by taking a tough stand.
Mozambique would certainly win applause from its neighbours who are actual and potential consumers of Cahora Bassa power.
"Continuation of the present situation makes Mozambique look like a country too weak to defend its own national interests", said the editorial. "It leaves other SADC (Southern African Development Community) governments with the impression the Mozambique is closer to Portugal than to the region of which it is a part".
If the government lacks the courage to take the decision on its own, Moyana suggested it should organise a referendum to see exactly what the Mozambican people think of the future of Cahora Bassa.
Fonte: AIM
