Addressing a Maputo press conference, Zucula said that, with the end of emergency activities, the phase of reconstruction now follows.
He said that the INGC's National Emergency Operations Centre (CENOE) will now serve as a logistics centre, and the accommodation centres created to house people displaced from their homes by the floods will be turned into resettlement centres, managed by the provincial governments.
In May, INGC will be handing the last kit of food products to the affected families, and also agricultural tools and seeds, to relaunch agriculture.
There should be no more donated food: the INGC's idea is that by June food for work programmes will be launched.
Zucula encouraged people to stop depending on donations and to start producing. The food for work programmes will allow the opening of access roads, water sources, and the building of the necessary infrastructures for people to resume their normal lives.
"Unlike what happened in 2001 (the year of the last major floods on the Zambezi), people have heeded the call not to return to areas prone to disasters, and are now only waiting for resettlement", said Zucula. "And because most of the current accommodation centres had been resettlement areas in the past, this will only require the demarcation of plots of land to be distributed among the affected people".
He added that in the accommodation centres that are currently functioning 107,000 people are living.
Turning to the man-made disaster which struck Maputo on 22 March when a military arsenal blew up, killing 103 people and wounding over 500 others, Zucula said that at least 1,300 houses were damaged in the explosions. Of these, six per cent were completely destroyed, 24 per cent suffered serious damage, and 70 per cent suffered partial damage.
He added that the work to repair and rebuild these houses will cost about nine million US dollars, for which the government will assume the entire responsibility.
However, among the victims, there are those who would rather leave the work to the government, while others prefer to receive the necessary building materials and do the work themselves.
The government's compensation office dealing with these matters will be fully functional next week, and representatives of those affected by the explosions are included in running it.
Meanwhile, the European Commission has promised to grant two million Euros (about 2.6 million US dollars) for rebuilding of infrastructures destroyed by the cyclone Favio in the Inhambane coastal districts of Vilankulo and Inhassoro.
The money will mainly be spent on rebuilding and improving of health units, schools, and other public infrastructures.
SOURCE: AIM
