Mozambique’s Transport and Communications Minister, Mateus Magala, said today that he expected to decide on the future of Mozambique Airlines (LAM) by March.
“I think that by March we will be in a position to make a decision on the future of LAM,” indicates a statement released today, citing statements made by the minister at the end of a visit to LAM on Friday.
Magala said that in December he had received a report on the situation of the company and that “the process of reviewing, re-evaluating and validating the report” was underway.
“What we want is to have a company that we are proud of, that is sustainable, competitive, that does not represent a cost to the government and that capitalises on the national market, where it has an almost monopoly,” he stressed.
The choice will be made “with a business mind”, he said.
“I cannot advance whether we will privatise or turn the company into a company,” he said, adding that the ongoing assessment “involves top people in the region and the world in aviation and reform”.
An analysis by the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), a Mozambican non-governmental organisation, released at the end of the year, pointed to LAM as one of the technically insolvent companies in the state business sector – surviving capital injections and state guarantees to respond to creditors, and as such posing a high risk to public debt.
Strengthening the supervision and management of companies in the business sector and improving control of debt are commitments by the Mozambican government to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the financial assistance programme of US$470 million (roughly the same amount in euros) until 2025.
Lusa
