Maputo, 13 Mar (AIM)- The rehabilitation of the port of Mocímboa da Praia, in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, which was recaptured from islamist terrorists in 2021, is expected to cost 30 million US dollars.
“In this first phase we are talking about an investment of about six million dollars, but at the end of the entire development programme we have calculated a total of 30 million dollars”, the port administrator, Helenio Turzão, told the Portuguese news agency Lusa.
On the night of 12 August 2020, armed jihadist groups attacked the Mocímboa da Praia port. According to Turzão, the terrorists who occupied Mocímboa da Praia for several months devastated the entire port infrastructure, as well as the cargo of several customers that was on site.
“We found the harbor extremely destroyed, both from the point of view of infrastructure and cargo. We had to do all the clean-up before we could start the rehabilitation,” he said.
Work on the port infrastructure works, which includes the construction of a new quay and the rehabilitation of the container yard, started in August 2022 and is expected to end in July this year.
The work is reasonably secure, since the district is gradually reviving, as a result of the joint operations of the Mozambican defence and security forces, and their allies from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
‘The commercial and industrial fabric is already returning with some force, which means that there is already economic activity for the populations, who have been returning at a good pace’, concluded Helenio Turzão.
After months in the hands of terrorists, Mocímboa da Praia was looted and almost all public and private infrastructure was destroyed, as well as power, water, communications and hospital systems.
Almost the entire pre-war population of 62,000 fled from the town in the wake of terrorist attacks, although in recent months many of the displaced people have returned.
Mocimboa da Praia, located 70 kilometers south of the construction area of the natural gas liquefaction project in Afungi, Palma, led by the French company Total Energies, was the first district to suffer jihadist raids, in October 2017.
(AIM)
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