The Minister of Transport and Communications, Janfar Abdulai, and the deputy minister in charge, Manuela Rebelo, don't really know why the 80 gas-powered buses are still inoperative, almost three months since their arrival in Mozambique on February 24.

As reported by the television channel, STV, on Saturday, March 16, the two entities disagree on the real reasons why the 80 buses for public transport of passengers in the Metropolitan Area of Greater Maputo are parked. While Abdulai says that the buses are parked because bureaucratic processes are still underway, his vice-minister points to the waiting for a public tender.

"We ordered those buses and it was necessary for their manufacturers to come and instruct the operators, but there are also administrative issues that have their bureaucracy and take their time," Minister Abdulai said.

"I personally don't see how I come to a person who is in the battle of having a car to go to work and say, 'wait because I'm still studying. No! It doesn't make sense," said Manuela Rebelo, to what seemed to be a lack of understanding regarding the supposed bureaucratic processes.

"We are constantly distributing buses and the next day we have problems with how to transport people, and we are trying to figure out what is the best way out. We think the best way out is to have a tender and whoever wins gets a lot of vehicles to do a certain route. This will probably help us a lot, and it is a process that is in fact underway, and the next few days we will do it. We already have the registration process completely finished including the license plates," said the Deputy Minister.

A few weeks ago, the portal "The Country" questioned the unfulfilled promises of the Maputo Metropolitan Transport Agency (AMT) about the start of operations of the 80 buses. "Already next week".... Time passed. "On the 2nd [of April]"... time was again fleeting... "We think we will do it this week" and this promise was identical to the others. Now what?

The vice-minister has a another idea up our sleeve: "the cars will have to be on the road as soon as possible, even if we have to hand them over to the municipalities, which are our first partner".

For the truth or lack thereof, the fact is that the beneficiaries continue to sit for long periods waiting for buses, and those who get a few inches inside them travel stacked up for several hours to their destinations.