14 November 2008
Maputo — The general secretary of Mozambique's ruling Frelimo Party, Filipe Paunde, on Friday declared that Frelimo is the only party in the country that has proved it is able to solve the problems facing the Mozambican people.
"Frelimo is the guarantor of our present and of the future of our children", he told a local election rally at Malhempsene in the southern city of Matola.
"If you vote for Frelimo, you guarantee the development of Matola", Paunde said, pointing to the improvementS made in living conditions by the central and municipal governments, both under Frelimo control.
"Frelimo has promised and it has delivered", he stressed. "Frelimo promises and it makes good on those promises".
He warned the electorate against other candidates who just imitate the Frelimo programme. "Know how to choose!", he exclaimed. "There are politicians who don't have any agenda of their own, and just repeat what Frelimo says".
Paunde and the Frelimo candidate for mayor of Matola, Arao Nhancale, attended the inauguration of a new municipal water supply system that will benefit around 10,000 people in the neighbourhoods of Malhempsene, Sikwama and Mussumbuluko. PaunDe claimed this system as an example of the results of Frelimo's governance.
The system has a reserve capacity of 100 cubic metres, and cost seven million meticais (about 290,000 US dollars) allocated by the government's Water Supply Assets and Investment Fund (FIPAG).
Manuel Tomas, a director of Aguas de Mocambique, the private-led consortium that manages the Maputo and Matola water systems, told AIM that the first stage of the project consisted in building the water reserve and 18 new standpipes, and repairing six standpipes that had long been out of operation. Six kilometres of new pipes were laid in Malhampsene alone.
"It's not a definitive solution", said Tomas, "since the construction of a new distribution centre is envisaged in Tsalala neighbourhood".
The chairperson of the FIPAG board, Nelson Beete, told the ceremony that the second phase of the project would start next year. FIPAG was about to launch the tender from which the contractor will be chosen.
The Tsalala centre will distribute water to several other neighbourhoods. Beet said "this is a vast programme, budgeted at 95 million euros (120 million US dollars). It will mean water 24 hours a day for these neighbourhoods and a coverage rate of 70 per cent".
The first phase, however, guarantees water for only between eight and ten hours a day. Telmina Pereira, governor of Maputo province, said that one of the new system's great advantages is that residents of Malhampsene will no longer have to cross the Maputo-South Africa motorway in search of water, which has led to serious traffic accidents.
"Because it was not possible to open boreholes in this area, since the water is salty, the government decided, in collaboration with the Matola municipality, that there was no alternative to this project", said Pereira, "we hope that with the second phase the problem of water shortages will be solved".
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