Good afternoon. News that people have been occupying a large area of unused land in Nampula province (see below) highlights another side to the pent-up public anger at ruling party Frelimo that has been released by the protests since October’s disputed elections. As various news media are now reporting, seizures of vacant land are taking place all over the country.

This newsletter has reported before on the scandal of Frelimo elites using their political influence to take control of land and then, frequently, leave it undeveloped while waiting for a business to come along and offer them money in order to develop it. Some of this land is in urban areas and could be used for housing; some of it is in rural areas and could be used to produce food which Mozambique currently imports (including, perversely, food grown in South Africa by Mozambican workers who have to travel across the border to work, and who could be employed in Mozambique if there were more farmland available).

Mozambique suffers from a shortage of affordable housing and available land on which to build it. Private developers are building some housing, but in a country where about two-thirds of the population are below the poverty line, the vast majority of people cannot afford to live in it. The government’s housing efforts have focused on giving people plots of land, but this is not sustainable in urban areas; there is just not enough land to go around, and the logical outcome of such a policy is massive urban sprawl, with people having to commute long distances into town on a slow, uncomfortable, and often unroadworthy bus in order to work. What the country needs is more dense housing in the form of multi-storey social housing blocks built to be rented at affordable rates. Money to build it could potentially be forthcoming from donors. The government also needs to enforce the law, which requires landholders to present a plan for developing idle land within two years, and protect the rights of ordinary people who find their land snatched away from them to give to a Frelimo fat cat.

In the meantime, grabbing hold of a plot of land seems like the most attractive route to having their own home for poor people living in squalid conditions, or even better-off people forced to live in an overcrowded house with their parents because of the housing shortage. Mozambique is an exceptionally young country — two-thirds of the population are aged below 25 — and the demand for more housing is only going to grow in the next few years. It is yet another challenge for the incoming government.

The latest from Zitamar News:

Today’s headlines:

Mondlane against rush to swear in Podemos members of parliament (Lusa, O País)
Record slump in business activity in December (Standard Bank)
Number of inmates killed in December prison break rises to 35 (Lusa)
Invasions of private land on the rise (O País, Notícias, TV Miramar, TV Sucesso)
Work restarts at Montepuez ruby mine in Cabo Delgado (Lusa)
Mozambique seeks new fuel supplier (Notícias)

Mondlane against rush to swear in Podemos members of parliament (Lusa, O País)

Opposition presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane yesterday said he was not opposed to the swearing in of opposition party Podemos’ members of parliament, but that he did not agree with doing so just yet. Mondlane said that there were still efforts underway to challenge the authorities over the disputed election results, in which Mondlane says that he won. In an open letter addressed to Albino Forquilha, the president of Podemos which has supported Mondlane’s candidacy, Mondlane said that the swearing-in now would “weaken the struggle” and would be disrespectful to the memory of the people who had died in demonstrations. Mondlane said that the members should not take office until progress had been made on his demands submitted to the government, emphasising that not taking office meant losing only pay and not the mandate. Mondlane has given Forquilha three days to respond to his letter.

It is doubtful if Forquilha will rush to provide a public response to Mondlane’s open letter. The dispute weakens the opposition, which is trying to reach a consensus to face ruling party Frelimo and Daniel Chapo, its presidential candidate who is officially president-elect. Zitamar News has learnt from one of the opposition leaders that the group is ready for Mondlane to join the discussions they are having with President Filipe Nyusi. One of the aims envisaged by the opposition is to reach an agreement on a political deal to be signed before 15 January, the date fixed for Chapo’s inauguration as president.