CHIURE AWARDS GUEBUZA TITLE OF “CHIEF BUILDER”

Residents of Chiure district in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado on Monday gave President Armando Guebuza the title of “”Regulo (chief) Nteka”.In the Makua language “nteka” means builder, and the title was awarded in recognition of Guebuza’s role in the construction of social and economic infrastructures since he took office in 2005.The award occured at a rally in Chiure town held as part of Guebuza’s open and inclusive presidency in Cabo Delgado. Mendes de Sousa Mawala, who read out a message from the local population, said that, since 2005, two secondary schools, one technical and professional training school, and several primary schools had been built. The Chiure district hospital had been expanded and rehabilitated, and the district had been connected to the national electricity grid, he added. Furthermore, said Mawala, the District Development Fund (FDD), instituted by Guebuza in 2006, which provides loans for projects that boost food production and create jobs, had allowed hundreds of families to expand their areas under cultivation and improve their homes. He declared that in Chiure “we no longer go hungry”. ”We’ve built brick houses, with gutters and cisterns, we’ve planted trees and we’ve begun to taste the fruit they bear”, he declared. “This is all your work, Mr President”. Shortly before the rally, Guebuza visited some of the buildings now attributed to him, including the Kuphe Secondary School, which is implementing the presidential initiative of planting “one tree per pupil” each year, and an inn that had been built with FDD finance.Guebuza accepted the honour but added “you’ve called me the Chief Builder, but I didn’t do all this on my own, because I always relied on your support”. “I’ve visited a modern school, with qualified teachers, and an inn”, he said. “It was never imagined that someone visiting Chiure would find a place like this, with comfortable rooms”.