Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)

After a day of serious rioting in Maputo, the Mozambican government and the Federation of Road Transport Associations (FEMATRO) have withdrawn the fare increase that sparked off the protests.

After an emergency meeting between the government FEMATRO, Transport Minister Antonio Mungwambe and FEMATRO chairperson Rogerio Manuel told a Maputo press conference on Tuesday night, that the fares charged by the minibuses that provide much of the capital's passenger transport would return to their old levels - five meticais for journeys of up to five kilometres, and 7.5 meticais for longer trips. The increases would have raised fares to 7.5 and 10 meticais (increases of 50 and 33 per cent respectively).

Mungwambe said that unspecified 'other measures' would be taken to compensate the transport operators for the money they lose by maintaining the old fares.

But restoring the old fares did not end the transport crisis. On Wednesday morning, very few of the minibuses (known colloquially as 'chapas') were on the streets. Regardless of the wishes of the FEMATRO leadership, chapa owners had gone on strike, demanding that the government reduce the price of fuel. (The immediate cause of the abortive fare rise was a January increase of 14 per cent in the price of diesel).

The aftermath of the riots was clear on Maputo streets. On the main avenues there were remnants of the barricades thrown up by the protestors. Along one of the city's main thoroughfares, Joaquim Chissano Avenue, piles of what had on Tuesday been heaps of burning tyres still smouldered in the light early morning rain.