Estrada destruída durante a passagem da ultima depressão tropical no sul de Moçambique
Maputo, 1 Apr (AIM) – The Matola Municipality, in the southern Mozambican province of Maputo, is investing 250 million meticais (about 3.9 million dollars, at the current exchange rate) for the repair of roads and access routes affected or destroyed by Tropical Storm “Filipo” and by last week’s torrential rains that hit southern Mozambique, especially Maputo city and Province.
The amount, which was announced on Friday by the Mayor of Matola, Júlio Parruque, was granted by the World Bank. The work will be carried out by the National Roads Administration (ANE).
During his working visit to the regions affected by the torrential rains of 24-25 March (which reached 300 millimeters in 48 hours), Parruque stressed emergency work focusing on three or four roads in the administrative posts of Matola Sede and Machava.
“We have the road from Dom Bosco to Patrice Lumumba. From Patrice, there’s a branch to Singathela and another to T3. We also have the road from Kilometre 15 at Josina Machel (Socimol) to the Nkobe neighbourhood, which is also a very critical point”, said Parruque.
In Matola Sede, he added, “we have African Union Avenue, known as the Estrada Velha (Old Road), we have the road that goes from the Game Supermarket area to Zuid, which is also a very difficult road, and we also have Joaquim Chissano Avenue.”
According to the mayor, the contractors and inspectors are carrying out the work with the requisite quality and speed.
“We have made specific recommendations to these contractors”, he said.
“We want them to increase the number of machines and workers, because we’re in a hurry to solve the problem of the roads, but the inspectors also have to do their best”, he said.
The mayor acknowledged that this work is not enough, so there is an urgent need to mobilize more funds to repair the municipality’s damaged infrastructures.
“We need to mobilize more as a municipality because the situation is quite challenging. We need to embank several roads and address the issue of drainage and for critical roads alone we need 1.4 billion meticais, while for drainage we need 100 million US dollars. We are concerned and advocating on behalf of Matola to have investment or funding for the necessary interventions”, Parruque said.
“We reiterate that Matola is in a very critical situation in terms of access roads, and in these works the residents must help to supervise”, he said.
(AIM)
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