Good afternoon. Mototáxis are one of Mozambique’s most visible informal safety valves. They provide transport where buses and chapas are scarce, and work where formal jobs are even scarcer. In cities such as Nampula, Pemba, Lichinga, Quelimane, Tete and Chimoio, they are part of daily life in a way that Maputo still does not fully recognise.
The fuel crisis has exposed how fragile that economy is. A mototáxi rider does not need much fuel at once, but he needs it often. Motorcycle tanks take only a few litres, so if filling it means spending three, five or eight hours in a queue, the day’s earnings disappear before the work begins. In Nampula, some riders have reportedly queued for hours and still failed to fill up. Others have simply parked their motorcycles.
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The parallel market has filled part of the gap, at a price most riders cannot absorb. Half a litre of petrol has reportedly been selling for MZN80-MZN100 ($1.25-$1.56), implying as much as MZN200 ($3.13) per litre. At those prices, a business already operating on wafer-thin margins becomes unviable.
The state’s response has created its own problems. During the shortage, some people bought petrol only to resell it at inflated prices, leading the authorities to ban the purchase of fuel in bottles and jerry cans. But the crackdown also hit people who use small quantities of fuel for real work: mototáxi riders, small farmers with irrigation pumps, and others whose livelihoods depend on informal access to petrol. In some cases, people have had to carry motor pumps or motorcycle tanks to filling stations because filling a bidon is no longer allowed.
