Maputo — Once again the deadline for the completion of the reconstruction works of the Sena railway line in central Mozambique has been extended due to an apparent inability of the contractor, the Indian Rites and Ircon consortium (RICON), to plan and mobilize the required materials.

According to Tuesday's issue of the daily paper "Noticias", RICON will complete the reconstruction works by November and not September as initially agreed.

This was disclosed on Monday during a visit made by Mozambique's Deputy Foreign Minister, Henrique Banze, to the Sena Line Reconstruction Brigade and to the Sleepers Factory in Dondo, in the central province of Sofala.

Initially, reconstruction works were scheduled to be completed by January this year, but they were delayed for the same reasons, explained the managing director of the Sena Line Reconstruction Brigade, Cándido Jone. Then, the deadline was extended to March, with September scheduled for formal delivery.

One of the reasons for the delay was the January flooding in the Zambezi Valley, which damaged part of the line that had already been concluded

Now it seems that is more likely that the line will be delivered to the Mozambican Government by November.

The Sena line runs from Dondo (30 kilometres west of the port of Beira) to the Moatize coal mines in Tete, a distance of 545 kilometres. There are two spurs, one from the Dona Ana rail bridge over the Zambezi to the Malawian border (44 kilometres), and one from Inhaminga to Marromeu (82 kilometres).

On the occasion, Jone conformed that 437 kilometres have already been competed, which means that there are only 109 kilometres that still need to work on.

He also said that both the Marromeu spur and the other over the Dona Ana Bridge, have been completed

Asked about the most critical areas of the Sena Line reconstruction, Jone said, 'we lost two months because of Zangue Bridge, besides the other reasons we explained before, including delays by the contractor in mobilizing resources".

In another development, Jone explained that price fluctuations in the international market led to the increase of the total budget to 220 million dollars up from the initial 152 million US dollars.

This forced the management of the publicly owned company Mozambique Railways (CFM) to negotiate with its foreign partners, and managed to secure 42 million US dollars from European Investment Bank, a sum that is expected to be available within the next few weeks.

Banze also deplored that existing problems related with health, hygiene and safety at work health, which must be improved by the contractor.