Maputo — The 2,500 kilometres of Mozambique's main north/south highway, linking Maputo and Pemba, capital of the northern province of Cabo Delgado, will be fully rehabilitated by 2012.

Cited in Tuesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias", the chairperson of the Board of Directors of the government's Road Fund, Francisco Pereira, said that work is under way on several stretches of this highway as part of the government programme to improve the national road network.

The new bridge over the Zambezi river, between Sofala and Zambezia provinces, inaugurated in late August, was a key step in improving the road. Prior to the bridge, traffic between the north and south of the country depended on an unreliable ferry service across the river, and queues of trucks waiting to use the ferry would often build up.

The final stretches to be upgraded are right at the start of the road, between the Maputo suburbs of Jardim and Benfica, from Xai-Xai, capital of Gaza province, to the resort of and Chissibuca, between Massinga and Nhachengue, in Inhambane, Save and Muchungue, in Sofala, and Chimuara and Nicoadala, in Zambezia.

The work on some of these stretches is already underway, while others are pending the conclusion of the necessary engineering studies.

"Within three years, it will be possible, for instance, for people to drive from Maputo to Pemba without worrying about the road, because it will be fully tarred and it will be of good quality", said Pereira. "This will give us a sense of freedom that we have not had for a long time".

Pereira added that the Road Fund will also intervene on other important roads, including the route between the port of Nacala and Nampula, and between Lichinga and Cuamba, the two main cities in the northernmost province of Niassa. The road from Lichinga to Montepuez in Cabo Delgado will be upgraded, which will give Niassa easy access to the port of Pemba.

"With these interventions we will have a balanced road network", said Pereira.

Mozambique has about 30,000 kilometres of classified roads, of which only between 6,000 and 7,000 kilometres are tarred. The major problem that the government has been facing in tarring the roads is the shortage of resources, worsened by constant increases in the prices of the necessary materials.

To illustrate this point, Pereira said "Three or four years ago, it would cost between 350,000 and 400,000 US dollars to build one kilometre of a road, and now this has increased to about 700,000 dollars and, in some cases to 800,000 dollars per kilometre".

"This means that to build 100 kilometres we need something like 70 million US dollars, which is a lot of money for our state. To build 1,000 kilometres we need a very large programme', he added.