Mozambique Begins Slow Process of Rebuilding in Wake of Costly War

The once-red block letters have weathered to a dusty pink, but the revolutionary slogan remains legible on a warehouse wall at Mozambique’s main port: “Viva o socialismo!”

A few hundreds yards away, capitalists are striving to restore the Maputo port to its glory days, when ships from around the world docked to load the riches of southern Africa.

Mozambique’s leaders have set out on the reform road--selling off state enterprises, courting foreign investors, pledging businesslike political stability. But change won’t come quickly to one of the world’s poorest nations, which must overcome a slow-to-fade legacy of war and mismanagement.

The end of the pier where fisherman Carlos Silva unloads his catch each evening has been taken over by ragged street children who have stacked discarded bricks into shacks. Some mornings, boats can’t get out to sea because they are stranded in the muck. The harbor hasn’t been dredged for two decades.

Still, Silva is sure the end of the long civil war in 1992, sealed by 1994 elections that transformed former guerrillas into a parliamentary opposition, was a new start for the country. He is encouraged by talk of rehabilitating the port and of new business deals with rich foreigners.

“These new conditions--our relations with South Africa and other countries--make it clear life will improve,” Silva said as he watched workmen load sardines onto a truck.

South Africa’s white minority rulers once used their wealth and power to try to weaken black rule in neighboring Mozambique. With the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africans have been welcomed as they stream in to build hotels, run restaurants, even buy into the state brewery.

U.S. companies such as Colgate-Palmolive and Coca-Cola are also doing business in Mozambique, along with British banks and Australian engineers.

At the state-owned Maputo port, South Africans hired to run some of the terminals have been praised for improving efficiency and increasing capacity. Oranges from South Africa, sugar from Swaziland and steel from Zimbabwe are again heading out to world markets through Maputo.

At times, it seems Mozambicans hope to solve their economic problems by handing them over to someone else. Few skills and capital are left at home.

During the colonial days, the Portuguese held on fiercely to high-level jobs and made sure no Mozambicans could threaten those positions by denying them education. At independence in 1975, only three dozen Mozambicans had university degrees.

War between the new leftist government and rightist rebels broke out almost as soon as the Portuguese left. Money that could have been spent on schools went for guns and ammunition, while sabotage and neglect destroyed the country’s bridges, roads and ports. Hungry fighters even decimated the herds of elephants that once drew tourists to Mozambique’s game parks.

“The war is over, and we are trying to create opportunities so that war never returns--without jobs and without food, it is impossible to have stability,” said Mario Dimande, head of the ports and railways authority. “But we need time to organize, build new infrastructure and import new technologies.”

At the port alone, improvements could cost more than $200 million. Dimande is looking to foreign donors as well as investors to help.

Mozambique has little to offer beyond raw materials--from shrimp to gold--and raw manpower. To get to those, entrepreneurs have to hack though a Marxist-style bureaucracy.

Land remains in the hands of the state, although it is possible to buy buildings and sign long-term leases for real estate. All significant investment must be approved by the government in a process that can take months.

Finance Minister Tomas Salomao has promised to speed approval for investment deals, saying “the private sector will be the motive force” for development.

“This process of moving to a market-based economy is one that’s quite slow and difficult. But this government is very committed to change,” said Roberto Chavez, the World Bank’s representative in Maputo.

Progress is measured in small steps. Diners marvel that a favorite beach-side restaurant now has electricity--before peace, they brought along their own drinks in coolers. A maid counts herself lucky that her employer pays 550,000 meticais (about $40) a week and still gives her two days off each week, instead of demanding a six-day workweek.

At the port, Dimande’s deputy, Paulo Auade, sighs when he sees laborers dozing on the job.

Auade recorded a tiny triumph after learning 10 men were assigned to make tea and sweep up his office.

“Ten people for what? Nothing. I reduced it to two,” Auade said. “If we are looking for development, we must change.”