Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Wednesday hailed Portugal’s transfer of control of a huge hydroelectric plant to its former colony as the end of ”the final redoubt of foreign domination”.
Guebuza signed an agreement with Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates late on Tuesday to buy 82% of shares in the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi river.
Mozambique paid $950-million for the purchase of the stake in Southern Africa’s largest hydropower project. The agreement ended years of dispute over the dam.
Guebuza said the agreement symbolised ”breaking with the past, and the dawning of a new era in the relations between our two countries”.
Portugal was the colonial ruler of Mozambique for 500 years.
”It removes from our soil the final redoubt, the landmark of 500 years of foreign domination,” he told the Associated Press.
Mozambique became independent from Portugal in 1975. There then followed a bitter civil war between the government and rebels that ended only in 1992. Since the end of the civil war, Mozambique has emerged as a model of democracy in Southern Africa and has managed to boost its economic growth rates to alleviate crushing poverty.
Guebuza said that Mozambican control over Cahora Bassa ”will stimulate the rural electrification that is already under way, and improve living conditions for many more Mozambican communities”.
The hydroelectric project was set up in 1975. Shares were supposed to be transferred gradually to Mozambique as the debt incurred in building the dam was paid off.
But after Renamo rebels sabotaged hundreds of pylons in the 1980s, it became impossible to sell power to the dam’s main customer, the South African electricity company Eskom and the dam went deep into debt.
Talks on handing over control of the dam to Mozambique were frustrated by disagreement over the handling of the company’s estimated $2,2-billion debts to Portugal.
Mozambican authorities argued they had not guaranteed the debt and therefore should not be liable for the payments.
The hydropower plant is now a viable concern, exporting power, as well as supplying the energy for the grid operated by Mozambique’s own electricity company.
Portuguese premier Socrates described the agreement as ”closing the final chapter of the history of the past, and opening the first chapter of the history of the future”.
He said that Mozambique could count on Portugal for support. ”We desire to build a relationship between peoples and brothers.” – Sapa-AP