Nampula: 45 million meticais for new Municipal Assembly – a public-private partnership

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Nampula: 45 million meticais for new Municipal Assembly – a public-private partnership

6:10 CAT | 11 Aug 2021

Photo: Conselho Municipal de Nampula

The Municipal Council of Nampula, the largest urban centre in northern Mozambique, plans to invest at least 45 million meticais 8around US$707 thousand at current exchange rates] in the construction of new facilities for the municipal assembly.

The foundation stone was laid on Friday (August 06) by Nampula mayor Paulo Vahanle, and the building is expected to be delivered in 120 days.

The all-new assembly building will guarantee better working conditions for the members of the assembly of the largest constituency in the country, and will have two floors housing a session hall and offices for cabinet chiefs and other support sectors.

Municipala.fb_ — *Photo: Conselho Municipal de Nampula*

Public-private financing

According to Vahanle, speaking without elaborating on exactly what the private return would be, financing is mixed public and private. There are however rumours that the city council has lately been delivering historic buildings in the city to businesspeople, especially from Great Lakes region countries and the Horn of Africa.

“We are witnessing the laying of the foundation stone for the construction of the new building where the Municipal Assembly of Nampula will function. Indeed, the building where this deliberative body is currently housed is not the best. Therefore, in our reflection, we had to make contacts with economic agents in the marketplace, and some showed an interest in giving us a hand. Therefore, the building, budgeted at 45 million meticais, will be public-private financed,” Vahanle said.

“This is not money from President Vahanle,” the Nampula mayor explained, “nor from the Ministry of Economy and Finance of our country. But, yes, it results from public-private financing.”

President of the Municipal Assembly Tertuliano Juma said that the building where the assembly was currently housed was unfit for purpose, and that the party benches must have space to work there and not in their own party premises. No such space was to be found, for several reasons, hence the need for a new building.

“In the building where we are currently accommodated, including where the urbanisation [department] works, when there is humidity or rain, we cannot touch the walls or the grates, for fear of being electrocuted. When it rains, we don’t touch anything. So the purpose of this launch is to build a new assembly with the necessary working conditions,” Tertuliano Juma said.

By Esmeralda Boquisse

Source: Jornal Ikweli