The state-owned companies will undergo a restructuring process, and a consulting firm has already been contracted to present a report by the end of the year. In the first phase four companies will be covered.

Among the companies that are already going from bad to worse and will be targets of this process are Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM), Empresa Moçambicana de Seguros (EMOSE), Electridade de Moçambique (EdM) and Correios de Moçambique.

In the view of the Institute for the Management of State Holdings (IGEPE) these companies are no longer strategic. Furthermore, some analysts consider that these companies are a burden to the Mozambican state and that their restructuring is not the best solution.

Economist Lucas Ubisse says that the state should get rid of LAM, which has a debt of seven million meticais, doesn't even have an airplane, and still wants to rent a Q400 aircraft.

"I am of the opinion that the government should think about another management model for the Mozambique Airlines (LAM) company, so that the State stops supporting it," Ubisse suggested, quoted by voaportugues.

For António Francisco, also an economist, the restructuring should have been done a long time ago, because public companies represent quite a heavy burden for the state.

"Public companies should bring benefits to the state and contribute to revenues, the quality of services, and to force other companies to become competitors," the economist emphasized.

He also mentioned that it is up to the state to design the role of public enterprises, clarifying how they should be made efficient, especially to stop bringing more burdens.

However, jurist Armando Nenane doesn't know how the restructuring process will be done, because "there are vested interests in the public and state-owned companies.

Nenane said that "corruption in public companies is a widespread phenomenon, and the fact that the people who run these companies are not recruited through technical competence, but through co-optation and political trust, that is nepotism in management.

It should be noted that the $500 million debt of all public and state-owned enterprises is primarily with commercial banks and suppliers of goods and services.

Companies such as LAM, EDM, Petróleos de Moçambique have already reached an unsustainable level of indebtedness, according to IGEPE.