20 February 2008
Maputo — The Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi in central Mozambique has reduced its discharges to about 2,400 cubic metres a second, according to the latest bulletin from the National Water Board (DNA).
This is the lowest level of discharge from the dam since mid-December. The Cahora Bassa lake has proved able to absorb most of the extra water released into the river from the partial opening of one of the floodgates on the Kariba dam, further upstream. As of Monday, the lake was 69.6 per cent full.
Rainfall has slackened or ceased altogether in most of central Mozambique, and in the neighbouring countries. As a result the Zambezi has continued to drop, although the river's lower reaches are still in flood.
At Mutarara, the river dropped from 5.1 metres on Monday to five metres on Tuesday - which is exactly the flood alert level. At Caia, the Zambezi fell over the same period from 6.38 to 6.25 metres. Further downstream, at Marromeu, the river can no longer be measured, because the scale was damaged when a boat hit it, but the DNA reports that here too the river is falling.
Meanwhile there are reports of some people in the resettlement areas for flood victims trying to make money from the illicit sale of food aid. According to a report in the Maputo daily "Noticias", one person was arrested on Tuesday in the Nhambalo II resettlement centre in Caia district, and six sacks of maize flour were recovered from the five people to whom he had sold them.
Joao Ribeiro, deputy director of the government's relief agency, the National Disasters Management Institute (INGC), declared that the INGC is taking measures to end such abuses. It is carefully checking the lists of food aid beneficiaries in the resettlement centres to remove fictitious names that dishonest local officials have added so that they can obtain more food and sell it.
The six sacks of maize were recovered when Ribeiro and Caia district administrator Jose Cuela, accompanied by several journalists, personally intercepted five people cycling away with the sacks slung over their bikes.
One of them was a Red Cross activist, who claimed that the food aid had been offered to him by a local chief. Others admitted that they had paid people at the Nhambalo II centre up to 120 meticiais (five US dollars) per sack.
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