The municipality of Maputo promises that by the end of 2022 the city of Maputo will have a gondola transportation system with suspended vehicles called 'FUTRAN'. and says that the City Council already has a partner that has secured $250 million to finance the project. Construction will begin in September.

After the Automated Transit (AGT) promised by the Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications, Manuela Rebelo, in 2017, and the surface metro of the reign of the former mayor of Simango, the municipality now has a new promise. This is a type of transport based on the FUTRAN system with cars running along suspended lanes, a project that the municipality says will be started within three months.

"Where the EN4 and the Maputo Ring Road finish, we will build two large multi-storey parking lots. This will allow people entering the city to leave their cars and board these suspended vehicles to move around the city," explains João Ruas, President of the Municipal Mobility and Parking Company (EME) quoted by the newspaper "O País". "These vehicles will operate at the same price as the 'chapas'".

Despite the lack of space in Maputo city, Ruas says that the system is viable and sustainable on several levels.

"All mass transportation solutions - buses, etc. - require readjustments to the aesthetics of the city. Our city is not designed to have 100 buses [on the roads] at the same time, for example. This solution has the advantage of having the devices suspended, they only occupy one square meter on the sidewalk, like a lamppost. They are electric and use solar panels, are autonomous, and have no driver. They are centrally controlled", he says.

João Ruas says that there is a partner for the project, and Mozambique will not be harmed as a result of the deal. EME's CEO went further in explaining the reasons for the failure of other projects.

"The state keeps 80% of the business and the partner, who comes in with $250 million, keeps 20%. The logic is that we have a fertile market that gives us a [good] return, and in 25 years we will have recovered the invested capital. This should be seen as a business that generates money. Our problem is that we have confused the concept of what a company is. Every company, state-owned or private, its ultimate goal is to generate money. If you don't make money, there is no reason for it to exist. Our projects fail because we don't create them as companies," Rues exposes.

Construction of the 40 km line will be carried out by a joint South African-Chinese consortium. Work will start between September and October of this year, and the system will go into operation between late 2022 and early 2023.

According to the Municipality's representative, the system already operates in Miami (USA), and in Sweden, Germany, Japan, and China. Mozambique will be the first African country to have this type of public transportation.