The Minister of Transport and Communications, Mateus Magala, said today that the company Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) had a lower real debt than declared, due to a "technical lapse", which forced a correction that improved the company's liabilities.

According to Mateus Magala, the known debt of more than 300 million dollars that the carrier had been declaring "was actually less than that", because part of "what was imputed as debt was not debt".

"We had an unsustainable debt, because we penalized ourselves with a technical lapse or limited knowledge," but "a small correction" found that LAM "was not so bad in terms of debt," said the minister, quoted by Lusa.

According to the government official, the revaluation of the flag carrier's charges has allowed 47.3 million dollars of debt to be recovered from the company's treasury in one month.

"The operation was due to the in-depth technical knowledge of Fly Modern Ark, the South African company hired by the Mozambican government in April to help normalize LAM's financial and operational situation," continued Mateus Magala, pointing out that Fly Modern Ark's intervention aims to "put the house in order", with the government having to decide on the carrier's future at a later date, depending on the options indicated in the carrier's viability studies, which include privatization or identifying a partner company.

It should be noted that on Monday, LAM's new management committee announced that the company was no longer insolvent, having collected 47.3 million dollars in state and private debts since April, but that there is still a risk of collapse.