Mozambique spends the equivalent of about 40 million US dollars every year on the rehabilitation of the about 24,000 kilometres of the rural road network.
In his opening speech, Public Works Minister Felicio Zacarias admitted that this sum is too large, hence the importance of learning from other countries how to reduce such costs and improve the results.
Zacarias said that, despite this expenditure, most Mozambican rural roads become impassable during the rainy season.
He stressed the need to find local solutions with the available resources to overcome the difficulties that the sector is facing, and argued that success in the maintenance of rural roads depends on decentralising the services involved to district level.
Also to deal with this matter, 80 of the 128 district road technicians are currently meeting in a training course to upgrade their skills in the central province of Manica.
Mozambique currently has some 30,000 kilometres of roads, of which only 6,000 kilometres are tarred. The chairperson of the board of directors of the Mozambican Road Fund, Francisco Pereira, told AIM that the country spends about 150 million US dollars every year on repairing and maintaining the entire road network.
He said that of this amount, 60 million dollars come from taxes charged on fuel, while the remainder comes from the state budget and direct support by the country's cooperation partners.
SOURCE: AIM
