22 August 2008
Maputo — Thousands of families in western Mozambican province of Tete, who were displaced by floods on the Zambezi river in January, may still be without shelter during the next rainy season, which begins in October.
"We are sure that, the way things are currently going, we will not be able to build the 19,000 houses needed for the flood victims before October, the onset of the next rainy season", Augusto Firmino, the Tete delegate of the government's relief agency, the National Disasters Management Institute (INGC), told Radio Mozambique on Thursday.
"This is a work that will continue next year", he added, admitting that the post-flood reconstruction plan is running slowly in Tete.
According to Firmino, the government has disbursed 20 million meticais (about 835,000 US dollars) for the building of about 1,700 houses, a figure that is far from satisfying the needs of the 19,000 families in the province.
"The problem is about money", said Firmino. "The government is making a huge effort. We have financed the building of more than 800 houses in the province, and I think that by the onset of the rainy season we will have helped build another 900".
About 100,000 families were made homeless by the Zambezi Valley floods in four provinces (Tete, Manica, Sofala and Zambezia). Besides their home, those people also lost almost all their property, including large cultivated areas where crops had already been planted.
The government's post-floods reconstruction plan had been budgeted at two million US dollars.
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