Specialists in extractive industry matters say that after 16 years, Vale's performance in Mozambique generated more losses than gains. For the specialists, Tete could not be "El Dourado" because the Mozambican government did not have an agenda to make that province a truly developed area..

According to the economist, Thomas Selemane, quoted by "O País", the movements of big capital by the mining companies operating in the country were the result of an international dynamic that Mozambique, for its part, failed to domesticate and also failed to build its own agenda to control the dynamics of the extractive activity.

The economist highlights as one of the major problems the fact that the Mozambican government has not outlined any strategies in terms of development alternatives.

"There was never a national discussion about the different development alternatives. The country made itself available to receive investments from coal investors without there being a genuinely Mozambican discussion internally that could put into different perspectives the problems that extraction brings and all the consequences around it," explained Selemane.

For his part, researcher Boaventura Monjane, also quoted by "O País", says that what was lost in Tete, with the performance of the extractive industry, is more than what was gained.

"Tete was not El Dourado because extractivism, in its essence, when it happens in peripheral countries like Mozambique ends up not benefiting the other sectors of national life," said Monjane adding that "what was lost in Tete ends up being greater than what was gained."

Boaventura Monjane pointed to the loss of biodiversity, loss of livelihoods, loss of employment, among others, as consequences of mining in Mozambique.