Mozambique has nothing to pay, nor is it expected to, with the guarantee issued in favour of the National Hydrocarbons Company (ENH) in the gas project suspended after the attack on Palma, announced the Government.
“I would like to reassure the deputies: at this moment the State is not paying anything, directly or indirectly related to the issue of the guarantee in favour of ENH,” the Minister of Economy and Finance, Adriano Maleiane, said Wednesday in parliament at a question session with the Government.
The members of parliament wanted to know the amount that the State would be paying for ENH’s participation in the project.
Maleiane considered the risk of the Mozambican state being foreclosed due to the guarantee of around US$2.2 billion backing the loans made to the state company to guarantee its 15 percent stake in the project consortium, led by Total, to be “minimal.
The governor re-stated that the guarantee was meant to cover the construction period, as the infrastructure itself, once it was concluded, would serve as collateral for repayment.
The completion of the gas liquefaction plant in Cabo Delgado was scheduled for 2025, a date that may slide until 2027, he admitted, in an unknown aggravated by the indefinite suspension
“This is the reason we are not paying anything, because it was not necessary to issue a guarantee via the banking system, but in the sense of giving confidence. It’s like a letter of commitment issued by the State and that’s why it’s called a ‘sovereign letter of guarantee'”, he detailed.
In this guarantee the liability is not direct, “unlike the other ones issued by the state where [the liability] was direct,” he explained, in a reference to the sovereign guarantees regarding the case of the ‘hidden debts’, contracted without parliament’s knowledge between 2013 and 2014, worth two billion euros and which gave rise to several arrests and court cases.
The completion of the gas liquefaction plant in Cabo Delgado was scheduled for 2025, a date that could slip until 2027, he admitted, in an unknown compounded by the indefinite suspension following the attack by armed rebel groups on Palma, the district where the project – the largest private investment in Africa, worth 20 billion euros – is located.
On the violence in Cabo Delgado, the minister said the government was working to restore order and that “everything is being done for the project to move forward.
