Mozambican contractors denounce illegal occupation of state lands

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Mozambican contractors denounce illegal occupation of state lands

2:18 CAT | 03 Aug 2018

File photo: Radio Moçambique

The Mozambican Federation of Contractors (FME) yesterday denounced the illegal occupation of state property in anticipation of demands for compensation, noting that this practice makes infrastructure more expensive.

Manuel Pereira, president of the FME, claims that there are networks promoting the occupation of land where public infrastructure is to be built, prior to demanding compensation for expropriation. “This is money the people and the country are spending unnecessarily. We have to draw attention to this,” Pereira said.

Pereira pointed to the case of the expansion of National Road EN4 linking the province of Maputo to South Africa, whose budget jumped from 42 billion meticais (EUR 6.2 million) to 47 billion meticais (EUR 6.9 million) because of the cost of removing and resettling families who had illegally occupied the land reserved for the highway.

That case, he continued, was just one of numerous examples of construction within forbidden areas on the highways. The illegal occupation of land had brought many public works projects to a standstill, greatly increasing overall costs, he said.

Source: Lusa