Africa-Press – Angola. The municipality of Quiçama completes Sunday (02), 85 years of existence with the focus on improving the basic social conditions of the population.
This is the partial lack of water, electricity, secondary and tertiary roads, schools and hospitals, as well as the shortage of qualified staff.
More rural, the largest municipality (12,046 km2) and the least populous in the province of Luanda (45,262 inhabitants, 2014 census), Quiçama also faces management problems, due to the fact that it houses a national park and a vast coastline, which requires the intervention of other ministerial departments, such as the Environment, Culture and Tourism and Fisheries.
The dispersion of its inhabitants is another “headache” for the local administration, as it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to build social infrastructures and provide basic conditions in each of the villages or towns, separated from each other by little less than two or five kilometers, in all communes.
As for the supply of drinking water, although the municipality is bathed by two rivers (Kwanza and Longa), only the main communes (Muxima) and Mumbondo have compact stations for capturing and treating water, with 80 and 50 cubic meters each, capable of supplying more than 1800 inhabitants in both locations.
The other three communes are supplied by tanker trucks, which have proved to be incapable, given the difficulties with vehicle maintenance.
The distribution of electricity is carried out by generators, from 8 am to 11 pm, only in the communal headquarters of Muxima and Cabo Ledo.
However, the lack of investors capable of boosting the local economy and promoting more tourism, since the municipality is characterized by several areas susceptible to tourist exploitation, among rivers, picturesque beaches, a national park with a diverse fauna and flora, can be considered the cause of the lethargy of its development.
In this respect, due to the underutilization of tourism in the national park, the Minister of the Environment, Ana Paula de Carvalho, recently advised on providing food and accommodation conditions for tourists.
However, the infrastructure built in the park, such as 25 bungalows, a restaurant and kiosks, are deteriorating because they are underused.
According to the park’s security director, António Silva, the various investors who appear interested in managing the park’s infrastructure give up after contacting the legal authorities, for unknown reasons.
The park has a total of 99 guards, considered insufficient to ensure an extension of 9,960 square kilometers, so at least 250 more would be needed.
During a report in the park, on a weekend, there was the presence of more than 50 tourists, including nationals and foreigners, who clamored for conditions for accommodation and food.
According to the park ranger on duty, the number of visitors throughout the week has been between 30 and 50, who must pay Kz 1500 each (children), Kz 2500 (adults) at the entrance, Kz 4,000 to see animals on safari, or 2,000 if in a personal car, for a period of two hours.
Herds of wildebeest, bambi, elephants, hololongos, zebras and monkeys are, among others, the most showy animals and in greater quantity in the park, lamenting the giraffes that are in smaller numbers, only two males.
PIIM works in progress
Twelve works in progress and two to start, out of a total of 20, in the portfolio of the Integrated Plan for Intervention in Municipalities (PIIM), in Quiçama, are conditioned by the delay in validating the financial rebalancing.
In general, the physical execution of the PIIM works, underway in the municipality, is at 59.93 percent and the financial at 53.54 percent, according to the director of the municipal study and planning office, Edio Chinguvo.
Best times in sight for the village of Muxima
Twelve years after its transfer from the province of Bengo to Luanda, in 2011, the municipality of Quiçama will benefit from a profound requalification, especially in the town of Muxima.
Still composed of houses made of wattle and daub, the village of Muxima will be completely rebuilt, including the construction of a Catholic church basilica.
Indeed, 300 houses out of the 600 (T3) to be built in the village of Coxi have been completed, eight kilometers from Muxima, on the way out to Cabo Ledo, with a view to housing the residents of the Catondo neighborhood and thus facilitating the start of work in the village, which , may soon become a religiously touristic space.
The requalification project also includes the construction of a medical centre, local administration, National Police Command, school, community centre, clergy building, allotment area for family homes and camping ground in Muxima, located 130 kilometers from the city of Luanda.
To be implanted in an area of 90 hectares, 40 hectares of which in this first phase, the requalification of the village of Muxima includes the construction of infrastructures for areas of residential and commercial buildings, power station and treatment of drinking and waste water .
The project will also have about 114 thousand square meters of road area, with an average width of 10 meters, and about ten to 12 kilometers of new and renovated roads, parking for three thousand light vehicles and about 50 thousand square meters of landscaping. .
The future Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora da Muxima, also known as Basilica de Nossa Senhora da Muxima, to be built in an area of 18,000 square meters, will have the capacity to seat at least 4,600 people, a public square with capacity for 200 thousand devotees and another five thousand inside the sanctuary.
The President of the Republic, João Lourenço, authorized, by order, in 2018, the requalification of the village and sanctuary of Muxima, with a total budget close to 91 thousand 620 million 393 thousand and 916 kwanzas (one dollar was worth 308.61 kwanzas on that date ).
The Muxima Sanctuary is the largest worship center for Catholics in Angola, and annually hosts a pilgrimage with hundreds of thousands of Christians from that congregation.
Located on the banks of the Kwanza River, in the Luanda municipality of Quiçama, the area was occupied by the Portuguese in 1589 who, ten years later, built a fortress and the Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, also known as “Mamã Muxima”.
The municipality of Quiçama is limited to the north by the municipalities of Viana and Icolo and Bengo, to the east by the municipalities of Cambambe (province of Cuanza Norte), Libolo and Quibala, and to the south by the municipalities of Quilenda and Porto Amboim (province of Cuanza Sul). and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean.
In addition to the commune of Muxima, the municipality of Quiçama comprises the communes of Demba Chio, Quixinge, Mumbondo and Cabo Ledo.
A large part of the municipality is occupied by the Quiçama National Park.
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