6 November 2008
Maputo — The building or rehabilitation of 1,043 kilometres of Mozambican roads, and 700 metres of bridges, that should have started this year, has been postponed into 2009 because of shortage of funds.
The General Director of the National Roads Administration (ANE), Eusebio Siquela, told AIM that "this project could not start this year because of financial reasons connected to the financing system or the granting of the financial resources".
He said, however, that maintenance work on some of the roads will be done this year to guarantee that they are passable, even during the rainy season that is now beginning.
The 1,000 kilometres of roads to be rehabilitated next year include several stretches of he main north-south highway - included the stretch between the Maputo suburbs of Jardim and Benfica, between Chissano and Xai-Xai, in the southern province of Gaza, and between Massinga and Nhachengue, in Inhambane province.
Siquela said that a precondition for working on the Jardim-Benfica stretch will be resettling a number of families who have built houses at the side of the road. But this is no longer a problem, because the government had made funds available for resettlement.
Making a balance sheet of work done by the ANE since 2005, Siquela said that 66 per cent of the government's five year programme for the country's roads has been completed. But the government's term of office ends in late 2009, and it is doubtful if the other 34 per cent con be completed by then.
Siquela said that since 2005, there were 22 major interventions on 12 roads classified as national highways, covering 2,019 kilometres. Of this, 608 kilometres were on National Highway Number One (the main north-south route).
Another four interventions were carried out on roads classed as regional highways, all of them in the central province of Sofala, and covering 395 kilometres.
Since 2005, routine road maintenance has covered 52,000 kilometres. This is more than the entire road network of 30,000 kilometres, because maintenance teams worked on several stretches more than once.
During this period, ANE also built or rehabilitated 1,340 metres of bridges. In 2008-2009 work is scheduled on a further 3,936 metres of bridges, "which means that, by the end of the government's term of office, 5,276 metres of bridge should have been completed", he said.
Speaking about the schedules and quality of the building work, Siquela complained that there are some dishonest contractors, who do not abide by the terms agreed in their contracts. He admitted that the state could also be at fault, by not paying contractors on time.
However, he insisted that "it is more frequent for contractors to break the terms of agreements and, sometimes, they even abandon the jobs. I could give many examples but it is not important to mention them here, because we are now more interested in finding the right solutions".
He explained that rescinding contracts is not always the best solution but, though trying to avoid such a "tough measure", ANE had to rescind a contract with the Portuguese company Tamega in July. This company was to put road signs on a 30 kilometre stretch of the main highway, between Maputo and Marracuene, and build a weighbridge at the entrance to Maputo city.
"This job suffered several delays", said Siquela. "The last deadline was 31 July 2008. It expired with the work still uncompleted, and the contract was rescinded." He said that the ANE is now considering the next steps, not excluding the possibility of imposing sanctions on Tamega, as envisaged in the contract.
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