Good afternoon. President Daniel Chapo is rarely out of the news headlines these days: the president is keen to show he is taking action to push forward the country’s development and people’s fortunes. For the second time this month, the president has appeared at a triumphant launch ceremony for a major urban development project. Following the unveiling of the 6,000-home “youth city” for the city of Maputo’s Costa do Sol neighbourhood, Chapo announced the “petrochemical city” to be built at the village of Mavanza, in Inhambane province’s Vilanculos district (see below).
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Both developments are to be undertaken by Phoenix International Group, a Hong Kong-based company that does not seem to have done business in Mozambique before, although President Chapo says that they have built housing in Angola. Both the projects would amount to mini-cities, with shops and services as well as homes.
But Chapo is beginning to get carried away by his promises. If it was hard to believe that the Costa do Sol project would be finished in two and a half years, as promised, then it is impossible to believe that anyone is going to build a “petrochemical city”at a cost of $2bn within four years as he promised. Building thousands of homes is challenging enough, but building factories to produce plastics, fertiliser and other products derived from oil and gas is never going to happen in such a short timescale.
