Mozambique has had an industrialization strategy since 2009. It has laws obligating companies to supply the domestic market since 2014. It has contracts giving it the right to receive gas instead of money since 2000. However, it has not implemented any of these three. In June 2026, it approved the most ambitious legislative package in the history of the extractive sector, and in the same month, the largest gas project in operation in the country exported, as always, 100% of its production. The question this text poses, and which no one in the government seems willing to answer aloud, is: if the problem isn’t the lack of laws, what is it?
The answer begins with a mechanism that almost no one knows about. The Mozambican state has the legal right to receive 5% of the gas produced by Sasol in physical form, not in money, but in actual gas, which could fuel industries, reduce imports, and create jobs. This right has existed since 2000. In parallel, the law stipulates that 10% of the revenue from this tax should be transferred to communities living in extractive areas. A study by CIP demonstrated that the government has been calculating this transfer only on the portion it receives in cash, ignoring the gas, harming communities by 53 million meticais between 2013 and 2020 alone. The same tax. Two failures. Mozambique has the instruments and doesn’t use them. This text explains why and what can be done without passing a new law.
