Nyusi inaugurates US$4.2mln water distribution centre – Mozambique

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Nyusi inaugurates US$4.2mln water distribution centre – Mozambique

8:33 CAT | 27 Oct 2016

Noticias / President Filipe Nyusi inaugurates the water distribution centre

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Wednesday inaugurated a water distribution centre at Intaka, in the southern city of Matola, which will supply water to about 87,500 people living in 12 Maputo and Matola neighbourhoods.

Built with the support of the French government, the distribution centre cost about 324 million meticais (4.2 million US dollars at current exchange rates).

The Centre increases the coverage of the area concerned from 57 to 82 per cent, and the distribution capacity from 240,000 to 360,000 cubic metres a day.

Speaking at the inauguration, Nyusi urged the users to be aware of the value of the distribution centre and to preserve it. “We want this infrastructure to last for many years and to fulfil its economic and social role”, he said.

He also urged the owner of the Centre, the government’s Water Supply Assets and Investment Fund (FIPAG), to manage the system with rigour and professionalism in order to ensure a permanent and reliable supply of water to the public.

The government will continue to invest in such projects, Nyusi said, because a supply of clean water is a certain way of promoting human capital.

“Healthy people are more productive”, he added, “and children and young people will have better results from their education”.

So far this year, Nyusi said, water supply systems have been expanded in the cities of Inhambane, Beira, Quelimane and Nacala, benefitting more than 30,000 people.

French ambassador Bruno Clerc said the Intaka Centre is part of a much broader project to improve the water supply for Maputo and Matola, supported through the French Development Agency (AFD).

The project had begun in 2012, and included the rehabilitation of the water treatment station on the Umbeluzi river, the rehabilitation of the Matola and Chamanculo distribution centres, the installation of new mains pipes, and 35,000 additional connections.

The system’s capacity to distribute clean water in the two cities had almost doubled, and now 1.5 million people in Maputo and Matola (73 per cent of the total population) had access to safe water.

The next stage, Clerc said, could be a viability study on extending the water supply network to the Katembe municipal district on the other side of Maputo Bay from the centre of the city. Major urban expansion is expected in Katembe after the conclusion of the bridge over the Bay in 2017.

Source: AIM