The paradoxical role of Mozambique's National Roads Administration

Paulo Vilanculo"

The National Roads Administration (ANE) announced its five-year program, with a track record of being implemented in 2031. According to Miguel Cuna, Deputy National Director of ANE, the institution has set July 29, 2026, as the deadline for contractors to submit technical and financial proposals for the “More Roads 2031” program. “In 2026, partners will be preparing their projects, but there is already a financial injection to allow for a smoother execution of the works starting in 2027. This is why we have already launched public tenders as a sign that there is sufficient funding to make the tender viable. We will collect approximately US$2.6 billion in domestic revenue from internal collections, through fuel taxes, border fees, tolls, and funds that will enable the payment of rehabilitation and construction expenses.” But to what extent does ANE effectively perform a strategic management and implementation function for road policies, or does it merely act as a conduit for public resources between the State, financiers, and contractors?

The case of the National Roads Administration (ANE) highlights an institutional paradox that deserves critical reflection. Although it was created to plan, manage, develop, and ensure the maintenance of the national road network, in practice the institution is frequently perceived as an administrative intermediary, whose main function is to prepare tenders, hire consultants, mobilize funding, and award contracts to third parties. Evidently, in modern economies it is common for public works to be carried out by private companies through public procurement. However, this does not exempt the public entity from the responsibility of possessing strong technical capacity to plan, supervise, monitor, track deadlines, control costs, and guarantee results. The announcement of the “More Roads 2031” program raises a fundamental question about the coherence between political discourse and the implementation schedule. If, in 2026, the National Roads Administration (ANE) is still in the phase of receiving technical and financial proposals, followed by the preparation of projects, launching of tenders, mobilization of contractors and fundraising, it becomes legitimate to question to what extent the 2031 horizon effectively represents a period of construction and completion of infrastructure, or only a cycle predominantly dedicated to planning and administrative preparation?

It is known that project management and the construction of large-scale roads require feasibility studies, environmental impact assessments, expropriations, fundraising, contracting, physical execution, and supervision—stages that, in many cases, take several years before the first kilometers are completed. However, the statement by the Deputy National Director of the National Roads Administration, according to which "in 2026 our partners will be preparing the projects," raises serious doubts about the execution capacity of the "More Roads 2031" program. If the preliminary phases only begin in 2026, the risk is that the program will end up prioritizing bureaucratic processes over concrete results for the population, perpetuating a governance culture oriented towards announcing programs instead of the effective delivery of infrastructure.

The launch of a public tender demonstrates the existence of budgetary allocation and, consequently, ensures the viability of the project, but deserves a more cautious analysis. Mozambican experience shows that several public projects initiated with budgetary allocation have suffered delays, revisions, or even stoppages due to subsequent financial constraints. In matters of public finance, allocation only represents the reservation or forecast of resources for a specific expense in the budget, and does not, in itself, constitute an absolute guarantee that all funds will actually be available throughout the execution of the work. The opening of a public tender is an important sign of administrative commitment, but it should not be confused with a full guarantee of funding until the completion of the works.

On the other hand, the assertion that the financial injection will allow the execution of the works to proceed more smoothly only from 2027 onwards raises pertinent questions about the pace of implementation of the program. If the contracting process takes place in 2026 and the financial resources are already allocated, why is the physical execution of the works postponed to the following year? Although procedures such as proposal evaluation, awarding, contract signing, equipment mobilization, and compliance with legal requirements may take time, a program designed to address the infrastructure deficit should seek to overlap these phases whenever possible, reducing the interval between contracting and the start of works. In these circumstances, it becomes necessary to question why the launch of public tenders is accelerated before there is certainty that the projected resources will actually be collected and made available throughout the execution.

In public investment management, the sustainability of a program generally depends on the existence of sufficiently consolidated funding sources before undertaking large-scale commitments. The statement that the program will be financed by approximately $2.6 billion from revenues yet to be collected through fuel taxes, tolls, border crossings, and other sources raises a question of financial prudence. Although financial realization depends on multiple factors, such as state revenue collection, disbursements from cooperation partners, annual budget execution, and macroeconomic stability, financing that relies predominantly on future revenues, the materialization of which depends on economic performance, collection efficiency, and other external factors, risks reversing the logic of planning, metaphorically putting "the cart before the horse."

The rapid pace of administrative work, far exceeding the actual execution of the project, creates an environment conducive to increased risks of inefficiency, undue favoritism, conflicts of interest, and other irregularities that have historically plagued public projects in various contexts. This is not to say that such practices constitute acts of corruption in themselves, but to acknowledge that prolonged processes between awarding and execution tend to require particularly robust oversight mechanisms. The haste in launching tenders, issuing budget allocations, and initiating contracting processes for a program whose physical execution is only foreseen for the following years inevitably raises questions about administrative rationality and the transparency of public management. The true success of the National Roads Agency (ANE) should not be measured by the number of tenders launched or contracts signed, but by the quality, extent, and durability of the roads actually built and maintained in service of national development. More than announcing schedules, the Government must demonstrate that it has the institutional capacity to rapidly transform projects into concrete works, because development is measured in roads built and passable, not in technical dossiers accumulated in institutions.

2025/12/3