Maputo — Maputo 2 Jul (AIM) - The residents of several neighborhoods of Maputo city are facing heaps of foul-smelling rubbish in the streets because the municipal council has stopped collecting garbage.
The Council's excuse is that it has no money to pay a debt of 280 million meticais (about 4.4 million US dollars at the current exchange rate) owed to the companies subcontracted to collect the rubbish.
According to the municipal councilor for Infrastructure and Health, João Munguambe, cited in Tuesday's issue of the independent newsheet "Carta de Moçambique', the municipality is aware of the heaps of rubbish, "but at the moment there is little that can be done to settle the debts due to financial constraints.'
"Although we acknowledge this debt, we also have current expenditures, as well as managing old debts. We have to find the budget to manage current and previous accounts', he said.
Munguambe also claims that the money paid by residents in the monthly rubbish tax is not enough to cover the costs of waste collection. However, the municipality has never informed the residents about the insufficiency of their tax contribution, which is added to their electricity and water bills.
He insulted the city's residents, accusing them of creating too much rubbish, which calls for new collection strategies.
"The waste collection activity must not stop and we are in the process of restructuring it and this is being done with some science. It's being done and, in the next few days, we'll start repaying the debt', he said.
It is difficult to understand how the Municipality can claim it has no money, since it spent 10 million meticais just to hold Independence Day festivities, on 25 June.
Furthermore, the Maputo municipality is involved in a controversial 290,000 meticais public tender to contract a company to paint a Municipal Police car. However, according to the Municipal Secretary, Euclides Rangel, cited by the independent daily "O País', the painting of the car was done in February, and the tender was only launched in order to formalize an act that had already taken place.
