Radio Moçambique (RM)

Rádio Moçambique (RM) is Mozambique’s national public radio broadcaster, with provincial transmitters in all eleven provincial capitals. RM was created on 2 October 1975 by Decree-Law 16/75, barely three months after the proclamation of national independence, through the nationalisation of the colonial-era radio operators that had until then served Mozambique. The country’s broader radio broadcasting tradition dates to 18 March 1933, when the Grémio dos Radiófilos da Colónia de Moçambique (later Rádio Clube de Moçambique) first broadcast from a downtown Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) location. The current Maputo headquarters, located on Rua da Rádio, is housed in an emblematic 1948 building that has served the broadcaster across both colonial and post-independence eras (per RM’s own institutional history). RM was transformed from a state organism into an Empresa Pública (public enterprise) on 16 June 1994 under Decree 18/1994, and has carried the “Made in Mozambique” seal since 3 June 2009.

In October 2025, RM celebrated its 50th anniversary under the theme “RM-50 anos Servindo Moçambique” (“RM–50 Years Serving Mozambique”), with public events at its Maputo headquarters on 2 October 2025. The broadcaster operates a national public-service portfolio comprising Antena Nacional (the flagship Portuguese-language national service), Rádio Cidade (FM in Maputo and Beira), RM Desporto (sports), Maputo Corridor Radio (English-language regional service launched on RM’s 24th anniversary, 2 October 1999), and ten provincial Emissores broadcasting in Portuguese, English, and 19 Mozambican Bantu languages. The broadcaster’s transmission infrastructure includes 11 medium-wave transmitters and more than 60 FM transmitters as of late 2015, complemented by online streaming.

Media assets

Radio: Antena Nacional, Maputo City Radio, Radio Maputo Corridor, EP Maputo, EP Gaza, EP Inhambane, EP Manica, EP Sofala, Radio City Beira, EP Tete, EP Zambezia, EP Nampula, EP Cabo Delgado, EP Niassa

Ownership and governance

RM was established as a public media enterprise by Decree 18/1994. According to RM’s own institutional description, the company’s governing organs comprise a Council of Administration, an Executive Direction, and a Fiscal Council, with the Chair of the Council of Administration (PCA—Presidente do Conselho de Administração) appointed by the Council of Ministers. The European Union Election Observation Mission’s 2024 final report confirmed that public-broadcasting directors in Mozambique are government-appointed, a structural arrangement the EU EOM linked to the lack of independence in news coverage. The full statutory composition of RM’s Council and the formal nomination procedures for non-Chair members are not consistently published in publicly accessible form; the existing State Media Monitor profile, drawing on Mozambican expert consultation, reports a five-member Council comprising the PCA plus members nominated by the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Finance, and RM staff.

The current PCA is Mário Mito Albino, appointed by the Council of Ministers on 3 March 2026 and sworn in on 9 March 2026 by Prime Minister Maria Benvinda Levi. Albino is an economist, having previously served as Director of Finance at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) and Financial Administrator at Mozambique Telecom (TMcel). He succeeded Abdul Naguibo, who had held the position for four years (since 2022). At his swearing-in ceremony, Prime Minister Levi tasked Albino with strengthening RM’s role “in the promotion of national unity, social inclusion, and citizens’ access to credible information.” Albino in turn outlined a digital transformation programme, with 2026 as a preparation year for the review and updating of existing projects, and 2027 as the year for the start of structural reform implementation. Albino has also publicly acknowledged internal challenges including working conditions, professional grading, and salaries, and committed to dialogue-based management with workers and unions.

The supervisory framework was substantially restructured in January 2025 under President Daniel Chapo’s first Presidential Decree (No. 1/2025 of 16 January 2025), which abolished the previous Ministry of Transport and Communications and created the new Ministry of Communications and Digital Transformation (MCTD) under Cabinet Minister Américo Muchanga, formerly chairperson of the National Communications Institute (INCM) and most recently chairperson of Mozambique Airlines (LAM). The status of GABINFO (Gabinete de Informação) , the Government Information Office that previously concentrated regulatory and supervisory powers over public media under the Prime Minister’s Office, and which the EU EOM 2024 final report identified as the body supervising both RM and TVM, has not been clearly clarified in publicly available decrees following the MCTD’s creation; oversight functions have effectively shifted toward the new ministry.

Source of funding and budget

RM depends heavily on public and state-linked financing: direct state subsidy, licence-fee revenue collected through electricity billing, and limited commercial revenue. The most recent disaggregated data, from a 2023 financial report published by IGEPE (Instituto de Gestão das Participações do Estado), showed that RM had a total income of approximately MZN 972 million (US$15 million), of which only 11% came from commercial sales, while 46% was sourced directly from state subsidies. The remaining balance came from household broadcasting licence fees, collected through the national electricity provider as a bundled household charge. By comparison, in 2015 RM had received MZN 434.6 million (approximately US$10.7 million) from the state budget, illustrating a substantial increase in public support over the subsequent decade.

IGEPE has now published Relatório e Contas 2023 – RM and Relatório e Contas 2024 – RM in its public Relatórios e Contas archive. Earlier Tribunal Administrativo reporting on the Conta Geral do Estado records RM as one of three state-owned enterprises that produced positive net results in 2019 (RM net profit MZN 49.278 million), although the broader pattern of Mozambican public-enterprise dependency on state subsidies has continued. Reports from March 2025 indicated that RM employees were embroiled in uncertainty due to delays in the implementation of the Single Salary Table (TSU), which has impacted pay and benefits, challenges that the new Albino administration has publicly committed to address.

A flagship modernisation initiative announced under the previous Naguibo administration, the RM Digitalisation Project, reported in 2021 as a remodelação/digitalisation effort budgeted at approximately US$86 million, and reiterated in 2022 as requiring around US$85 million for modernisation, was presented at the I Coordinating Council of GABINFO in 2021. The project was announced and later reprioritised, but public reporting on implementation outcomes remains limited.

Editorial independence

RM offers nationwide public-service radio and includes phone-in and current-affairs programming, but its editorial independence remains structurally weak. The European Union Election Observation Mission’s 2024 final report found that Mozambique’s public broadcasters operated within a framework lacking independence from government influence, and that RM’s 2024 election news coverage favoured FRELIMO and Daniel Chapo. The EU EOM’s media monitoring during the campaign showed that RM’s coverage of presidential candidates allocated 48% of news airtime to Daniel Chapo and only 11% to Venâncio Mondlane, with comparable disparities across RM’s broader political news coverage in favour of FRELIMO, the President, and the Government. This pattern fits a broader press-freedom environment in which RSF reports significant authority/FRELIMO influence over Mozambican media. An earlier independent evaluation from 2015 had reached similar conclusions, and Mozambican journalists and observers consulted for the 2025 SMM update reported that the underlying pattern has not significantly changed. There is no updated editorial statute that explicitly guarantees RM’s editorial independence, and no independent oversight mechanism exists to validate compliance with journalistic standards.

AI and digital policy

RM operates rm.co.mz as its primary digital portal, broadcasting all channels online 24/7, alongside YouTube, Facebook, and X/Twitter presences. The broadcaster’s US$86 million digitalisation initiative, originally announced in 2021 and continuing under new PCA Albino’s expanded “digital transformation” agenda, is the principal modernisation framework. No public RM policy on AI-generated content, content-provenance commitment (e.g. C2PA), or disclosure framework for AI-generated content was identified in the publicly available record, a documented absence rather than a definitive institutional claim. At the national level, AI and data-governance policy work is led by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Transformation (MCTD) through the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (INTIC).

May 2026