Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambican President Daniel Chapo on Friday clarified that the acquisition of tractors with trailers for public transport is an alternative only for hard-to-reach areas of the country, where roads cannot be built.
“These are suitable vehicles for rural areas, where the population is asking for them,” the head of state said at the end of a three-day visit to the central province of Zambézia, where he heard requests for these vehicles, after several days of controversy surrounding this solution.
“The problem is that there are places where, even if you have the resources to build roads, you won’t be able to build them, unless you have billions and billions of dollars. […] In Zambézia province, we have areas where only rice is produced, and rice production areas are completely flooded. Even if you have the resources, there’s no way to build roads,” Daniel Chapo pointed out, acknowledging that “those who feel the lack of that means are precisely the producers who live in rural areas”.
Hence, Chapo said, the use of tractors with trailers is limited to hard-to-reach areas, the same ones where government agencies currently have to “deliver medicines” or school exams: “They are not a means of transportation for residents, for asphalt, or for areas where roads can be built.”
Mozambican authorities will deliver 100 tractors equipped with trailers for passenger transport in rural areas with degraded roads, to minimize mobility difficulties, with the first 12 distributed this month in Cabo Delgado.
According to Paulo Ricardo, chairman of the board of directors of the Transport and Communications Development Fund (FTC), the trailers have “conditions created for comfortable transportation”.
“It was truly adapted for this reality,” the chairman stated during the delivery ceremony for the vehicles in Cabo Delgado.
The trailers protect passengers from heat, dust and rain, and have padded seats and protective barriers, he explained.
The opposition Mozambican National Resistance party described on July 18th as a “national shame” the government’s decision to provide one hundred modified tractors with trailers to ensure mobility in rural areas, 50 years after the proclamation of independence.
“Half a century of sovereignty, promises, speeches, and renewed hopes with each election. But the reality continues to be deeply disappointing,” reads a message released by Renamo.
The Mozambican government intends to purchase 390 buses to strengthen urban and rural public transportation in the country, with nearly half of them running on natural gas, according to information from the public tender reported in March of this year by Lusa.
The public tender launched by the FTC, open until March 25th, establishes the supply of buses for urban transportation and typical mixed-use vehicles for rural transportation, in batches.
The first batch involves the acquisition of 100 large buses, powered by Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), for the Maputo Metropolitan Area, and the second batch provides for the purchase of 50 medium-sized buses, also powered by CNG, for the Mozambican capital.
The third batch includes 100 medium-sized diesel buses “intended for the provinces”, the fourth batch includes 100 more “typical vehicles for public transport in rural areas” and the fifth batch includes 40 buses for transporting employees of the country’s public institutions.
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