11 March 2008
Maputo — Mozambique's National Road Administration (ANE) says that work on building and maintaining roads that had been paralysed because of flooding in the central and northern regions of the country during the last two months has resumed.
ANE general director Eusebio Siquela, was speaking to AIM on Monday about the delays in road construction in several parts of the country.
"The emergency work has resumed already and will be speeded up as the weather improves", he said, admitting, however, that the delays in the completion of these works are still a serious issue.
But the problems faced by the Mozambican road sector cannot all be blamed on the weather. Siquela admitted that delays are in fact mainly due to organizational and financial problems, and sometimes negligence on the part of the contractors.
Although Siquela stressed poor Mozambican organisation, the performance of some Portuguese companies that won major tenders for roads and bridges has been extremely poor.
Thus the company Conduril received the contract to rehabilitate a 70 kilometre stretch of the main north-south highway between Maxixe and Massinga in Inhambne province. Work began on 2004, but today that stretch remains full of potholes, and shows no sign of any serious rehabilitaton.
A second Portuguese company, Tamega, won contracts to upgrade a stretch of the road between Namacurra and the Ligonha river, and to build a bridge over the Lugela river, both in Zambezi province.
Both these jobs have suffered lengthy delays, much to the annoyance of Public Works Minister Felicio Zacarias. However, Siquela tactfully said he needed more time before he could give an assessment of the performance of the Portuguese companies.
Mm/bm/pf (280)
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
