Africa-Press – Mozambique. The mayor of Maputo, Rasaque Manhique, told Lusa on Wednesday that the Mozambican capital’s planned new landfill should be up and running within two years, after the public tender was launched this summer.
“It will be up and running in approximately two years, but we want to work, without prejudice to compliance with standards and quality assurance, to see if we can further reduce this deadline,” Manhique told Lusa in Lisbon, where the tender to launch the landfill that will replace the open dump in Hulene was presented.
The construction of the new landfill, an investment of $525 million (€460 million) to be part funded by the World Bank, he emphasised, “is important, given the situation of saturation of the Hulene dump, which is well known that in the conditions it is in, very rapid intervention is important.”
The dump, described during the Lisbon session as “a thirty-metre mountain of open-air rubbish,” covers 25 hectares and is the largest dump in Mozambique. It also provides a livelihood to thousands of people, known as pickers, who every day search among the waste for items that they can sell or use.
“There is great suffering among the population and the municipality is rushing to find solutions,” said the mayor, pointing out that the presentation of the international tender in Lisbon “is the first step towards building a new landfill” and that “very important steps have already been taken, such as the construction of the road that… will lead to the district of Catembe.”
The tender for the landfill, with a deadline of seven years and a model in which the operator will also be responsible for the design, operation and maintenance of the facility, should be launched in June, with a budget of $525 million, to be split roughly half-and-half between construction and operation, with 50% of the funds to be provided by the World Bank.
Speaking at Wednesday’s session in Lisbon, those responsible showed “great concern about creating the conditions for those displaced by the disaster [a 2018 landslide that claimed 16 lives] to be able to receive their homes.”
According to officials, only 21 of the 268 households affected have yet to be rehoused permanently.
The new landfill is expected to increase the municipality’s revenue from 2.9 million meticais to 9.3 million, and will have an operating contract for seven years, which will have to include a solution for the 700 to 1,500 rubbish pickers, who will have to be accommodated and integrated into other activities in the municipality.
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