Mozambique's Lessons for South Africa

But where are the trains?

If I'd had an extra week in Mozambique I would have travelled from Lichinga, in the north-west, to Ilha de Mozambique, directly east. However, the 300 km journey to Cuamba takes 10 hours and taxis only leave when they're full, if at all. The train between Nampula and Cuamba takes 24 hours and runs irregularly. It is the only way to get across. Then it's another five hours to Ilha.

More than 16 years after the peace accords that settled Mozambique, there is still no main bridge across the Zambezi River linking north and south. The current bridge requires that Mozambiquans travel via Malawi. There is, however, a new road being built between Cobue and Metangula; two towns interesting only because the president sometimes likes to visit and the road from the airport is a dirt track.

The colonial-era train station in Inhambane, a sea-side resort town, has been lovingly restored by international donors. A soldier stands proudly out the front and the original ticket offices, with their wooden trim and neat attendants, await passengers.

There is only one problem. No trains can reach Inhambane. The railway line is still a twisted wreck.

Not all the corruption in Mozambique is this obvious, but it is ever present.

More than 50% of all money spent in Mozambique derives from the charitable donations of the citizens of rich nations. The rest of the economy relies on the port in Maputo, the hydro-electric generator at Cahora Bassa, and a large new aluminium smelter that depends on both.

Signs of new wealth are plentiful along the Maputo coast where R15 million estates are springing up. Even the informal markets are full of produce, cheap Chinese clothing and Indian bicycles.

The structure of Mozambique's economy doesn't, however, look very different from that of South Africa. A small, secluded elite live opulent live behind private security guards and high walls. A massive population of subsistence farmers and urban poor eke out a living in a parallel economy, cooking on wood-burning stoves and sitting for hours in taxi ranks waiting to get anywhere.

Yet Mozambique is no post-colonial or post-Apartheid society. President Samora Machel successfully redistributed everything in the country; the way all communist revolutionaries promise. All land and businesses belonged to the state. That the economy collapsed came as a surprise only to the communists.

Post 1992, little has changed beyond a dull acceptance that investment won't happen unless investors have some title to the property they invest in. Even that is grudging.

One lodge-owner I interviewed was racing to Maputo to contest ownership of the lodge he built a year ago. A local politician had seen its popularity and decided that he had a prior claim to the land.

Business owners are regularly hassled for payments of non-existent license fees, or made to wait for months for unnecessary permits. It can take more than four years to get authorisation to start a business.

So there's the country: no roads, no infrastructure, no legal rights of ownership, widespread corruption, but growing at 6%. How'd that happen?

To borrow a nautical term: a rising tide lifts all boats. Extending it further: it is only when the tide goes out that you get to see who has been bathing naked.

African nations have been dragged along with the global economic boom as increasing productivity in China has fuelled the production of cheap products, as well as demand for commodities like copper, coal and iron. Maputo's port serves exports from South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Now the international economy has slumped.

The lesson to all African politicians is this: be not so proud. Africa's recent burst of economic growth has had little to do with political genius and much to do with external conditions.

Real growth will require politicians to transfer power from themselves to individuals. Without it, investment will be as fleeting as the tide.