Maputo’s normally bustling markets are emptier than usual with the stalls for staples such as potatoes and onions nearly bare and traders anxious as two months of post-election unrest regularly blocks imports from South Africa.
Protests over Mozambique’s disputed election result — which have killed more than 100 people, according to civil society groups — have snarled up the city centre with barricades.
They have also hit the main border with South Africa, a vital import route where intermittent shutdowns over the past weeks have put pressure on the economies of both countries.
Fresh potatoes, carrots, onions and other produce brought in from South Africa are almost impossible to find in the markets.
Mounds of rotten potatoes, caught up in days of delays in temperatures that can top 40 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit), lie stinking and rejected.
“It was about 100 trucks on the other side of South Africa that could not enter (Mozambique) in time,” said Siudecar Novela, president of the Mukheristas association of importers of basic necessities, of the latest stranded cargo.
“They were stuck there for four days and the potatoes started to rot,” he said at Compone market.
As the vegetable sellers and importers fret about their business, they also fear that worse is to come.
The main opposition leader Venancio Mondlane is due to announce on Monday a new wave of protests to push his demand for a recount of the October 9 election results.
Mondlane rejects the initial electoral authority announcement that he came second with 20 percent of the vote, trailing Daniel Chapo, candidate for the Frelimo party in power for nearly 50 years, who won 71 percent.
Novela fears the next round of protests will lead to a complete halt of exports via the border between Lebombo in South Africa and Ressano Garcia in Mozambique.
“It will probably not be possible to import because the borders risk closing,” he told AFP.
At the Zimpeto wholesale market, the main supplier of produce to the Mozambican capital, importers constantly check their mobile telephones for news from their transporters.
“We are waiting for the vehicles carrying our goods which are blocked at the South African border,” said Herminia Manjate, 56, who shares a truck with a dozen other importers.
“We expected the trucks to leave the border the day before but, so far, nothing. As you can see, the market has no produce. We are more and more worried,” Manjate said.
“We are asking for help. We are asking for our products to be released,” said trader Noca Sendela, 43, in front of sacks of potatoes.
– ‘We are not selling’-
The potatoes that Sendela did receive could not be sold because they had started turning bad while stuck at the border.
“We will not earn anything from them. At least out of 100 bags of onions, we can recover 50 left,” she said.
Like many other traders, Sendela relies on microfinancing to run her business.
“The creditors are already demanding reimbursement but we are not selling, we are not getting any return,” she said.
The South African economy is also suffering from the on-and-off shutdowns of the border, which is on a key route for exports via Mozambique’s deep-water ports at Maputo and Matola.
Each day of interruption costs the South African economy 10 million rand (about 532,000 euros, $558,000), according to the Road Freight Association.
On a visit to the border post on Wednesday, South African Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber called for a resolution of Mozambique’s political impasse.
“We know it’s impacting on trade, we know it’s impacting on travel, and no one wants that situation,” he said.
The importers say the only way out of the stalemate is dialogue between Mondlane — who says he has left Mozambique because of threats to his safety — and Frelimo, the party that has ruled the country since independence from Portugal in 1975.
“The problem has already been identified,” said small-scale importer Abilio Marima, 56.
“The two parties in conflict must find a solution so that the Mozambican people can once again enjoy total freedom. If they leave things as they are, it will get worse.”
The election results must be signed off by the Constitutional Council at least two weeks before outgoing president Filipe Nyusi hands over to his successor at the end of his two-term limit in mid-January.
