Maputo — The Mozambican road network is now 90 per cent passable compared with only 65 per cent in 2004, according to the Minister of Public Works, Felicio Zacarias, answering questions from deputies on Wednesday in the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.

He stressed that two major bridges will be completed this year - the "Unity Bridge" over the Rovuma river between Mozambique and Tanzania, and the new bridge over the Zambezi, linking Sofala and Zambezia provinces.

This bridge is a key link in the country's main north-south highway, and will replace an unreliable ferry service. Zacarias pointed out that Mozambicans have long dreamed and planned this bridge. Indeed, it should have been completed over 20 years ago, but work was delayed "by some Mozambicans serving foreign interests".

He was referring to the war of destabilisation waged by the apartheid-backed Renamo rebels. Some work was done on the approach roads to the bridge site in 1980, but the deteriorating security situation made it impossible to advance with the construction.

Asked by Renamo deputies to explain how tariffs are fixed at the toll gates on the Maputo-South Africa motorway, Zacarias said that the company operating the road, Trans-African concessions (TRAC), required the toll fees to recover its investment, repaying the loans it had taken from South African banks, and to ensure effective maintenance.

Under the contract signed in 1997 between TRAC and the Mozambican and South African governments, the variables to be considered in fixing the tolls are the South African consumer price index and the exchange rate of the Mozambican currency, the metical, against the South African rand.

When the calculations are done, and the annual difference is less than five per cent, then the tolls are unchanged. A change in the combined two variables of between five and eight per cent leads to an annual toll increase, but should the rise be over eight per cent (which could happen if there was a sudden spurt of inflation in South Africa, or a sharp devaluation of the metical), then there would be "periodic toll increases" (i.e. more than once a year), said Zacarias.

He informed the Assembly that rehabilitation of a stretch of the main north-south province through Inhambane province has been delayed because the road teams have uncovered the bones of people buried by the side of the tarmac. These were people traveling along the road who were murdered in Renamo ambushes in the 1980s, and then hastily buried in unmarked graves.

Asked by the parliamentary group of the ruling Frelimo party about water supply, Zacarias said he was confident that the government would meet its target of ensuring that 55 per cent of the rural population has access to clean water by the end of this year.

Between 2004 and today 8,100 water sources (wells and boreholes) had been built or rehabilitated, which is more than the government's target.

Zacarias said a major effort had been made in the two most populous provinces, Zambezia and Nampula. In 2004 only 22 per cent of Zambezia's rural population had access to safe drinking water, and in Nampula the figure was even worse - a mere 19 per cent. The figures have now risen to 38 per cent in Zambezia and 36 per cent in Nampula. These two provinces, however, are still way behind the rest of the country.

It is clearly easier to improve the statistics in sparsely populated provinces - thus in the province with the smallest population, Niassa, coverage rose from 59 to 79 per cent, in Manica from 51 to 61 per cent, and in Maputo province from 55 to 80 per cent.

Pf/ (614)