Mozambique International Postal Charges Rise
The Mozambican post office has increased its international mail charges by between 5.3 and 6.4 per cent.
As is habitual, the post office did not publicise these changes. Unlike the publicly-owned telecommunications and electricity companies, TDM and EDM, the post office never places any notices in the press advising consumers that price rises are on the way. Users only discovered them when they went to the post office, prepared to pay at the old rate, and were told that the prices had gone up. It now costs 20,000 meticais (about 83 US cents), rather than 19,000 (a rise of 5.3 per cent) to send a letter of up to 20 grams from Mozambique to any other member country of SADC (Southern African Development Community).
Sending a letter to Europe or America now costs 33,000 instead of 31,000 meticais (an increase of 6.4 per cent).
To send a newspaper or magazine weighing between 20 and 100 grams to a destination within SADC now costs 37,000 rather than 35,000 meticais, and to Europe 58,000 instead of 55,000 meticais.
This is the third increase in international mail charges in slightly more than a year. The cumulative effect has been virtually to double the cost of sending mail.
Prior to 1 June 2001, sending a letter to a SADC destination cost 10,000 meticais, and to places further afield 17,000 meticais. Posting a magazine of up to 100 grams within SADC cost 19,000 meticais, and sending it to Europe cost 30,000 meticais.
The post office has made no attempt to justify these increases. Certainly inflation over the past 14 months has come nowhere near 100 per cent, nor is the gradual devaluation of the currency a plausible excuse for such increases.
The result of the rises will certainly be to drive still more people away from post office. since e-mail is increasingly available as an alternative, and is much cheaper.
Postal charges within Mozambique, however, remain unchanged.
It still costs just 5,000 meticais to send a 20 gram letter from Maputo to anywhere else in the country.
