Maputo, 26 Set (AIM) – The widening of the section of the Maputo-South Africa N4 motorway road between the Tchumene Junction and Novare, in the city of Matola, budgeted at 27 million dollars, will no longer be concluded in October, according to the Director General of the National Roads Administration (ANE), Elias Paulo.
According to Paulo, cited in Friday’s issue of the independent newsheet “Carta de Moçambique”, the South African company responsible for the motorway, Trans Africans Concessions (TRAC), has now promised to deliver the four-lane highway by December.
This is the third time that the conclusion of the N4 has been delayed. TRAC hired Inyatsi, a company from Eswatini, with links to the Eswatini royal family, to do the job.
TRAC managers were summoned to Maputo by the Minister of Public Works, Carlos Mesquita, who was angered at the repeated delays in widening the N4. The road is suffering from traffic jams caused by trucks laden with minerals taking their cargo from the South African province of Mpumalanga to the port of Maputo.
Paulo said that only the basics will be ready by December. Everything else must be done later – including two service roads, one on each side of the motorway, and two feeder roads taking local traffic onto the N4. TRAC has also promised to install two footbridges over the motorway.
When asked about the delays back in June, TRAC replied “Although this process is lengthy and suffered setbacks in February 2023, due to heavy rains and flooding, when it was not possible to work a single day, there is light at the end of the tunnel, since once the work is completed, the permanent congestion will be resolved”.
“We reiterate that together with the police authorities we are doing our utmost to minimise the suffering”, TRAC claimed then. “According to the latest work programme, the paved road will be finished by the second week of September, with the erection of signs and other finishing touches remaining for the end of October 2023, and the utilities for a later stage”.
This has proved a wildly optimistic forecast, and chaotic traffic along the N4 will continue for at least another two months.
The government’s contract awarding the N4 concession to TRAC ends in 2027.
(AIM)
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