By Aurélio Muianga
Maputo (MOZTIMES) – The National Roads Administration (ANE) estimates at somewhat more than 4.7 billion meticais, the amount required to repair the country’s roads in the event of likely damage by floods in Mozambique’s current rainy season.
The ANE’s head of emergency monitoring, Gonçalves Langa, told MOZ TIMES that some of the road sector budget, included in the Contingency Plan for the 2024-2025 rainy season, will be used to repair slightly more than 17,000 kilometres at risk in ten provinces.
The other, unspecified part of the same budget will be applied on repairing over 9,232 kilometres of “critical roads”.
The two categories of road likely to be affected by flooding are in all the country’s provinces, with the exception of Maputo city.
The largest slice of the budget will be spent in the southern province of Gaza – 1.3 billion meticais to repair damage done to over 1,707 roads at risk and 724 kilometres of critical roads.
774 million meticais is earmarked for the most populous province, Nampula, in the north. This money is intended for 1,764 kilometres of roads at risk, and 1,410 kilometres of critical roads. The Nampula package includes 35 bridges, 28 drifts and 160 aqueducts.
The ANE manages a network of 30,000 kms of roads, or which only 8,000 kms are paved. According to Goncalves Langa, the budget must be mobilised from Mozambique’s partners over the year, and will not rely on the State Budget.
But the ANE will use its own funds to pay its permanent contractors for the routine maintenance of some of the critical roads under ANE management.
Currently under way are routine activities such as clearing drainage channels and identifying contractors with the installed capacity to undertake immediate interventions in the rainy season. Some contractors could be offered multi-year contracts.
The immediate work also includes publishing information through the mass media about the roads at risk, mobilizing funds to deal with damage caused by rains, and placing metallic bridges in areas of risk in good time. (AM).
