Video: Without peace there is no tourism – Nyusi

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Video: Without peace there is no tourism – Nyusi

8:37 CAT | 27 May 2016

A Bola (File photo) / President Filipe Nyusi

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Wednesday warned that tourism depends on a climate of peace and tranquillity.

Speaking at the inauguration of the Inter-Tete Hotel, in the western city of Tete, Nyusi said “Tourism unites peoples and is an object of peace. But without peace naturally there is no tourism, since in this is an activity in which people are at ease and relaxing”.

The new hotel cost about three million US dollars. It has 71 rooms, including three VIP suites, and is just a few minutes drive from Tete international airport. This means that guests arriving by air do not have to drive over the Samora Machel bridge across the Zambezi into the centre of the city to reach the hotel.

Nyusi stressed that tourism remains a priority for the government alongside agriculture and infrastructures. “Investments have been made here”, said the President, “and so the owners need to live in peace so that they are not cast into despair”.

But a further worry for investors in Tete hotels is the downturn in the Tete economy. The Inter-Tete Hotel was planned during the early days of the coal boom in Tete. But since then the international price of coal has collapsed, and the number of business tourists has shrunk dramatically.

Nyusi also chaired an extraordinary meeting of the Tete Provincial Government, where the Provincial Governor, Paulo Auade, claimed that the military situation is under control although “relative tension” remains in certain areas.

“The Defence and Security Forces are on the ground maintaining public order, security and tranquillity”, he said. “Because of this the situation is tending to normalise and the people are gradually returning to their zones of origin”.

Auade said the military tensions caused by gunmen of the rebel movement Renamo had particularly affected the areas of Nkondezi (in Moatize district), Monjo, Chibaene and Chiandame (Tsangano) and Kazula (Chiúta).

He recognized that the tensions had caused people from Nkondezi, Chibaene, and Chiandame to flee across the border into Malawi.

Alongside the work of the defence forces, Auade added, the government was taking action to improve social and economic conditions in the border areas ro encourage prople to remain within Mozambique.

Despite the drought that has hit parts of Tete in the 2015-16 agricultural campaign, Auade claimed the province had increased grain production by 8.3 per cent. The mining and energy sectors had grown by 16 and 12 per cent respectively.

The opening of a new operating theatre at the health centre in Zobue, on the Malawian border, had reduced the number of Mozambican who cross into Malawi for medial treatment, said Auade, and the opening of four new schools had improve the teacher/pupil ratio.

The great challenge facing the provincial government, he added, was to raise the percentage of the Tete population with access to safe drinking water, through the drilling of 139 new boreholes, mostly in the border areas.