22 December 2011
Maputo — The Mozambican and Portuguese governments have denied that the letter sent last week by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho to Mozambican President Armando Guebuza focused on the sale of Portugal’s remaining 15 per cent of the shares in HCB, the company that operates the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi.
The Portuguese publication “Africa Monitor Intelligence” had claimed that the letter reaffirmed the Portuguese government’s willingness to reach an agreement over the final 15 per cent of the HCB shares, but for an acceptable value which could not be less than 50 million euros (65.3 million US dollars).
The publication had claimed that the initial Mozambican offer was 40 million euros, rejected as “derisory” by the Portuguese side.
But, according to the Portuguese news agency Lusa, both the Lisbon and Maputo governments have denied that the letter from Passos Coelho dealt with the HCB shares.
A source in the office of Passos Coelho, said that the Prime Minister had indeed sent a letter, delivered last week by the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Miguel Relvas, which stressed the “excellent relations” between the two countries.
But the idea that, in the letter, Passos Coelho had proposed a solution to the HCB impasse “has no relation with reality”, the source said, without giving any further details.
The Mozambican government also denied receiving a letter concerning the sale of the shares. “As far as I know, we haven’t received this letter”, said Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi.
Energy Minister Salvador Namburete also said he had only heard about such a letter from the press. He stressed that the two governments are continuing to work on the HCB question, but not in public.
“We shall work with Portugal on the matter”, he said. “It was never our tradition, ever since we began negotiations, to communicate our positions through the press”.
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