Welcome to Zitamar’s daily Mozambique briefing for 8 August 2017.

The latest from Zitamar News:

Guebuza-Tata JV wins $28m Mozambique bus deal
The same company – 25% owned by the former president – won a controversial bus supply deal in 2011, too. Tata de Moçambique is the cheapest of three winning bidders this time around – but nevertheless the price seems very high.

The best of the rest:

Six public companies ‘sinking’ the state (Correio da Manhã)
Six of the 13 public companies which receive state subsidies have accounts ‘in the red’ – in particular state broadcasters TVM and Rádio Moçambique, according to the state’s accounts for 2016. Electric company EDM, Hidráulica de Chókwè, Empresa de Desenvolvimento de Maputo, and Regadio do Baixo Limpopo round out the list. Seven turned a profit, including Aeroportos de Moçambique, post office Correios de Moçambique, dredging company Emodraga, oil company ENH, and ports and rail company CFM.
Mozambique’s media regulator, the Gabinete de Informação, last week held a meeting for the state communication organs where they were implored to become self-sufficient – implying their days of subsidy may be drawing to a close. Not before the next elections, though, to be sure.

Prison break in Beira (Lusa)
17 detainees, including 10 convicts and seven awaiting trial, escaped from Beira’s central prison on Sunday, according to a statement from national penitentiary service SERNAP. Two getaway cars were waiting for the escapees outside the prison, which spirited them away to an unknown location. SERNAP said some of the prison’s guards have been taken in for questioning.
Fleeing prison while awaiting trial should not be taken as an admission of guilt – the wheels of Mozambican justice move slowly, and the wait can be a sentence in itself.

South Korea gives $700,000 for three cities’ water supplies (AIM)
The money will be spent on research to improve the supply in Xai-Xai, capital of Gaza; in Nampula, capital of the province of the same name; and Lichinga, the capital of Niassa.
President Filipe Nyusi also said this week that his government is “working together with the World Bank to mobilize $2.6 million” – 0.13% of the $2bn debt that the government wants to repay on behalf of ProIndicus, EMATUM, and MAM – for a water supply for the people of Inchope, Manica province.

Slight delay for Maputo-Katembe bridge (Mediafax)
The landmark Maputo-Katembe bridge will only receive its main ‘deck’ – that is, the road section – in September, having already been delayed from May until July. The public company running the project, Maputo Sul, said security reasons at the Port of Maputo meant that the deck’s arrival had to be rescheduled – but it should still be fitted to the bridge by the end of the year.
The bridge has shot up this year, another example of the efficiency of Chinese infrastructure construction. But two key questions remain – is the bridge really needed; and how will Mozambique pay for it?

Over 140,000 pensions wrongly paid in 2015-16 (O País)
National statistics office INE says social security provider INSS gave more than 140,000 people pensions that they shouldn’t have had between 2015 and 2016, due to the manipulation of INSS’s internal systems which used to be done manually. INSS did not say how much the wrong payments were worth.
A comprehensive ‘proof of life’ process for retired public servants – requiring them to register in person – has detected 8,775 fraudulent claimants since it started in July 2015.

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