Good afternoon. The government has created a new state-owned company, the National Petroleum Products Procurement Company (ENAPP), which will hold the exclusive right to arrange the importation of the fuel Mozambique wholly depends on. For about 30 years that job has run through Importadora Moçambicana de Petróleos (Imopetro), a nominally private company every importer had to join to import fuel collectively. ENAPP now succeeds it, taking exclusive control of national fuel procurement.
There is a real problem that needs to be solved, and the government’s reasoning, which Zitamar News has seen, suggests it has understood it well. The Imopetro model had become a barrier rather than a gateway: membership was capped, so newly licensed distributors waited more than five years to start importing. Because Imopetro was private, the state — constitutionally responsible for keeping the country supplied and for setting prices — had no direct control over a strategic chain, and it cites the April-May shortages this year as proof it must be able to act. Days before the decree, the attorney-general also announced an inquiry into millions of dollars of illicit fuel-trade transactions in the form of re-export and duty-dodging schemes that undercut honest traders.
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The decree also answers the obvious objection that the state is muscling into private-sector work as previously noted in this newsletter. On paper, ENAPP is not a trader: it is barred from producing, distributing or selling fuel. Distributors remain the legal importers and pay for the cargo; ENAPP only arranges the buying. Any newly licensed distributor must be admitted; board and staff may hold no interest in fuel companies; accounts must be audited and published. And, crucially for cost, ENAPP is funded first from the commission Imopetro already drew from the regulated price; not, in principle, a new charge.
So the change is more considered than its critics allow. But three big questions remain. The first is concentration. Exclusivity makes ENAPP the single door for the nation’s fuel, and the energy minister must personally approve which suppliers win the contracts, giving him great power over a strategic flow, and with it the temptation of commissions and favouritism. The government promises transparency and audits; whether they bind in practice is the test.
