Maputo, 11 Nov (AIM) – The outgoing Mayor of Maputo, Eneas Comiche, announced on Friday that the Municipal Council has abandoned its longstanding plan to build a landfill in the Matlemele neighbourhood in the neighbouring city of Matola.
The landfill would be an alternative to the foul smelling eyesore of the gigantic municipal rubbish dump in the Hulene neighbourhood. Successive mayors have promised to close the dump, but it is still there, towering over the houses around it (mostly built illegally).
The threat posed by the dump was illustrated tragically in February 2018 when, after heavy rains, part of the dump collapsed. It slid downhill, burying houses in filth and slime, and killing 17 people.
It was clearly urgent to close the Hulene dump and find somewhere else for the city to throw away its garbage. Negotiations were begun with Matola Municipal Council to open a landfill that could be used by both cities.
Five years later there is still no sign of a landfill in Matlemele, and rubbish is still being dumped in Hulene every day. On Friday, at celebrations marking the 136th anniversary of the elevation of Maputo (then known as Lourenco Marques) to the status of a city, Comiche finally announced that the Matlemele scheme has been abandoned.
There had been no advances at Matlemele, and so Maputo Municipal Council will push ahead on its own and install a landfill in KaTembe, which is the municipal district on the opposite side of Maputo Bay from the centre of the city.
Comiche assured his audience that land in KaTembe is available, and will be supported by the World Bank as part of a package of 100 million dollars it has pledged for the development of Maputo.
Comiche said it had proved impossible to move families living on the land earmarked for the landfill in Matlemele. When his term of office began in 2019 “I tried to find ways of working jointly with Matola Council”. The space eventually found was not in Matola at all, but in KaTembe.
As for finally closing the Hulene dump, Comiche promised that this will happen in 2024 or shortly afterwards. “In a year and a half or two years, we shall close the dump”, he said.
As for the chronic problem of public transport in the capital, Comiche was confident that the long-promised BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) scheme would come to fruition, coordinated by the Transport Ministry.
As for the plan to build an overhead suspended railway (known as Futran), which should have been built in 2022, Comiche said a contract to implement the scheme has been signed with Chinese partners.
(AIM)
Pf/ (447)
