Mayor of Maputo calls for emergency fund

Maputo, 25 Apr (AIM) – The Mayor of Maputo, Rasaque Manhique, has called for the creation of an emergency fund for better management of natural disasters in the city, taking into account that it was hit recently by torrential rains, which caused the destruction of private and public infrastructures.

According to Manhique, who was speaking on Wednesday at a meeting of the Maputo Municipal Assembly, extreme natural phenomena are increasingly severe, with a major negative impact on the capital city, which makes it necessary to create an emergency fund.

The Mayor mentioned, as an example, that the floods that hit the city in March affected around 10,640 households, which corresponds to 49,647 people.

“Taking into account that natural phenomena are cyclical, and with increasingly severe characteristics, there is a need to create an Emergency Operating Committee. We urgently need to set up an emergency fund to better deal with these phenomena”, he said.

“We must, as a body, draw up the terms of reference for the management and transport of this fund, which will be for the good of our citizens.

“The repetition of these phenomena, and these frightening figures, require that we respond consistently and swiftly on the scale of a capital city. Unfortunately, phenomena of this nature put cities on the back foot, given the magnitude and unpredictability of their destructive potential”, he said.

The Maputo municipality, he said, is trying to minimize the damage and losses “to our population at times of crisis like this.”

The mayor believes that major interventions need to be made around the capital to prepare the city for future events, “adapting its profile to the demands of climate change, but this is a job that will take time given the objective conditions in which we find ourselves”.

(AIM)

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