Maputo — Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi warned on Monday that the lack of decent roads is a factor delaying the development of Africa.
He was speaking in Maputo at the opening of a meeting of the General Assembly of the African Roads Maintenance Fund Association (ARMFA), an event which brought together representatives of 35 national Roads Funds.
The absence of good roads leaves the continent in a situation of "atrophied development', said Nyusi. The lack of a road network isolates people from the transport corridors, from links to the commercial centres, from access to education and health, as well as from growth opportunities.
"This situation derives from the precarious maintenance of the existing roads, due to the shortage of money for this purpose', said the President.
At a time when the continent is heading towards economic integration, through the creation of a free trade zone, Nyusi regarded road transport as a sector that should facilitate that integration. He believed that trade should be based on robust and well maintained road networks.
Nyusi said that the network of classified roads in Mozambique covers over 30,000 kilometres, but only 27 per cent of this network is paved. 69 per cent of the roads are in "reasonable' condition, but the remaining 31 per cent of the roads are "bad, very bad or impassable'.
Nyusi stressed that those who use the roads should pay for them. The two main forms of payment were road tolls, and increased taxes on fuel, neither of which is popular with motorists.
The President said Mozambican fuel taxes provide 56 million dollars for road maintenance a year, while road tolls bring in 12 million dollars. This is not enough.
Nyusi pointed out that fuel taxes have not been increased recently - in a period of high inflation, "this compromises the capacity of the National Road Fund to maintain the road network'.
Indeed, rather than increase taxes, the government effectively reduced them. The government used to take 12 meticais (about 19 US cents) from every litre of petrol or diesel sold. But Nyusi admitted that, rather than increase fuel prices, the government had reduced its tax take to just four meticais per litre of fuel.
