27 February 2008
Maputo — The Mozambican government has extended the mandate of the Support and Reconstruction Office (GAR) until 31 December 2008.
This office was created by the government to support the families affected by the explosions in the military arsenal in the Maputo suburb of Malhazine on 22 March 2007. In those explosions, artillery shells, rockets, mortars and other obsolete military equipment, mostly of Soviet bloc manufacture, were hurled out of the blazing arsenal, landing up to 10 kilometres away.
107 people died in the disaster, 515 required medical attention, and thousands of buildings were damaged.
The GAR's main task was to rebuild or repair houses that were destroyed or damaged in the explosions. Optimistically, the government gave it a year to complete this task. Since the GAR was set up on 10 April 2007, the original plan was that it should be wound up by 10 April 2008.
But the government has now accepted that this timetable is impossible, and so a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday decided to extend the life of the GAR until the end of the year.
The government spokesperson, Deputy Education Minister Luis Covane, told reporters that the GAR's job now includes other activities that were not initially included in the reconstruction plan, such as the repair of shops and other non-residential buildings, which were also affected by the explosions.
A further aspect to be dealt with is the refunds to those Maputo or Matola citizens whose houses had been damaged but whose owners decided to reconstruct them at their own cost.
Covane admitted that the initial survey after the explosions was incomplete. More detailed work in the neighbourhoods showed that many more houses than initially imagined had been damaged.
He said that 5,459 houses were initially identified as damaged, but the number subsequently grew to 12,062. "Of this number, 4,572 have already been repaired. 1,400 are still being worked on, and we have more than 6,000 houses to rehabilitate. This is a lot of work", Covane added.
He said that the government has 256 million meticais (about 10.6 million US dollars) available for this work, which is believed to be enough to meet the needs in terms of rehabilitating the damaged houses and shops, and refunding those citizens who did the work themselves.
243 houses were identified as totally destroyed by the explosions. These were the top priority and have all been rebuilt. The last 48 were handed over to their owners in January.
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