GUEBUZA CALLS FOR "AGGRESSIVE" ROAD STRATEGY

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza declared on Tuesday that the country needs “an aggressive strategy” to respond to the growing needs for road construction and maintenance in the rural areas.Speaking at an extraordinary meeting of the government of the Chitunda administrative post, in Muidumbe district, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, Guebuza said that such a strategy would require that road building and maintenance materials should be stored under the responsibility of each of the country’s 128 districts.He stressed the problems caused to rural producers by badly maintained roads. Farmers grew crops, Guebuza said, only to find that they are unable to take their surplus to market, because the rural roads are so poor.He was speaking after a rally in Chitunda, at which several people asked him to intervene to ensure the opening or rehabilitation of access roads that would facilitate the movement of produce, and also allow ambulances to take sick people to the nearest hospital.Guebuza stressed that the Mozambican state has decentralized resources to district level, precisely in order to meet the needs for basic infrastructure.Some years ago, the government decided to allocate 2.5 million meticais a year from the state budget to each district for infrastructures. That infrastructure fund has now risen to seven million meticais (about 250,000 US dollars) per district per year.“There are many people who can’t sell their produce because the roads either do not exist or are in poor condition”, said Guebuza. “So why is part of this sum not being used to acquire road building equipment?”

The President added that he believes that loans from commercial banks can be obtained to acquire road construction or maintenance equipment, and the district governments could use the infrastructure fund to pay off the loans. He suggested that two or more districts could enter into partnerships in order to acquire this equipment. In most of the rallies Guebuza has addressed during his “open and inclusive presidency” local residents have complained of the damaging consequences of the poor rural road network.