GUEBUZA INAUGURATES NACALA AIRPORT

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Saturday officially inaugurated the new international airport in the northern port city of Nacala, costing over 250 million US dollars, and built with the financial support of Brazil.Guebuza declared that the imposing new buildings are yet further proof that “there are people committed to the construction of a prosperous Mozambique, and who oppose those who only know how to make speeches which incite to violence and destruction”. In a clear reference to Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the former rebel movement Renamo, Guebuza said he hoped that those who make such speeches will stop doing so “in order that Mozambique and its people may attain the well-being they long for”. The President stressed that this airport, which can accommodate planes of any size, “shows that the development of Nacala is unstoppable”. The airport, he added, was one of several major investments in Nacala. These include the new coal terminal at Nacala-a-Velha, and the railway connecting it to the Moatize coal basin in Tete province, the expansion of the existing Nacala port, and two new hotels nearing completion.

Guebuza said that, in the almost ten years of his two presidential terms of office, a great deal has been done to build the infrastructures which will form the basis for the accelerated development of Mozambique. Nacala is the fourth major civil aviation investment of the past decade. The others are the complete reconstruction of domestic and international terminals at Maputo airport, the rehabilitation of Pemba airport in the far north, and the transformation of Vilamkulo airport, in Inhambane province, into an international airport, aimed essentially at the tourist trade. The first airline using the new airport is Mozambique’s publicly owned carrier, LAM (Mozambique Airlines). As from last Monday, LAM has been operating the Maputo-Nacala route three times a week. There are also tentative plans to fly from Nacala to Dubai and to the Indian city of Mumbai.During the ceremony, Transport Minister Gabriel Muthisse praised the work Guebuza in transport and communications, which he described as a continuation of the work he had done when he held that ministerial portfolio bretween 1987 and 1994. He stressed Guebuza’s leadership in the construction and rehablitation of rail and port facilities which are “a major lever for the country’s development”.