Mozambique: Closing Hulene dump will cost US$110 million – Minister Correia

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Mozambique: Closing Hulene dump will cost US$110 million – Minister Correia

12:54 CAT | 26 Feb 2018

Photo: Lusa

Mozambican Minister of Land, Environment and Rural Development Celso Correia estimated the cost of closing the rubbish dump in Hulene, where 16 people were killed by a landslide on Monday, at US$110 million (89.3 million Euros).

Speaking to the media in Maputo on Friday, Correia said that closing the Hulene dump, Maputo’s largest, would take at least five years and follow several stages.

‘Investment is needed to close the garbage dump so that it is safe for other activities,” Correia said, and would require technological investment so that the waste was no longer a problem.

Costs would include the removal of 550 families from the vicinity of the rubbish dump to new land in Maputo province.

“It is not enough to remove the families for the dump to be considered closed. There is all the work necessary to make the place fit for new activities,” he said.

Image result for hulene celso correia — *Photo: O País*

Minister Correia said work on a new landfill site in Matola municipality to replace Hulene was underway. “The new landfill is expected to receive the first garbage in the first half of 2019,” he said.

The president of Matola municipality, Calisto Cossa, told the press that the construction of the new landfill would cost US$40 million (32.5 million Euros).

Built before Mozambique’s independence, and long before the city of Maputo expanded to its current size, the Hulene dump has been full for more than ten years, and has seen the number of houses in its near vicinity increase dramatically.

The collapse of the mountain of garbage on Monday morning of last week killed 16 people and wounded several more, five of whom were still hospitalised on Friday.

Source: Lusa