By Evaristo Chilingue
Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Road Fund struggled with a lack of capital to finance emergency responses during the past (2021-2022) rainy season, Chairman of the Board of Directors Angelo Macuacua has said.
Needs amounted to eight billion meticais, but the fund could mobilise only 457.4 million meticais, a deficit of 93%. According to Macuacua, that amount is not enough to maintain even one kilometre of road.
“In 2022, eight billion meticais were needed to deal with the damage caused by the rainy season,” Macuacua said during a conference on sovereign natural disaster insurance in Maputo a few days ago. “That is the amount needed to get the road sector up and running, to maintain the country’s roads. However, with the amount mobilised, we could not even maintain one kilometre of road. The situation is very worrying.”
As a result of the high funding deficit, the state owes contractors a lot of money, the Road Fund chairman admitted.
The current rainy season (October to March) is expected to affect about 2,500 km of roads and 14 bridges throughout the country, at an estimated cost of three billion meticais
Macuácua said that a fund dedicated to emergency works must be created to reverse the funding deficit, through the support of development partners and the use of emergency funds already available.
The Chairman of the Road Fund further noted that it was imperative to train technical road sector staff to proactively prepare attractive projects for the various financing windows.
For More News And Analysis About Mozambique Follow Africa-Press
