Government to Support Drought Victims in Southern Mozambique With US$851 000 / PM Rules Out International Appeal

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Government to Support Drought Victims in Southern Mozambique With US$851 000 / PM Rules Out International Appeal

2:40 CAT | 16 Feb 2016

In file Club of Mozambique / Carlos Agostinho do Rosário.

Mozambican Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario has ruled out launching an international emergency appeal in response to the severe drought striking much of southern and central Mozambique.

At the end of a four day visit to drought-stricken parts of Maputo and Gaza provinces, Rosario said that Mozambique has not yet exhausted its internal capacity to deal with the crisis. He believed that the appropriate approach is to exploit to the maximum the existing resources, complemented by assistance from cooperation partners who have been working with the government in assisting the vulnerable strata of the population.

Cited in Monday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, Rosario said “the situation is worrying because there are pockets of hunger. People are going hungry because it has not rained, but we are also encouraged because there are efforts on the ground to deal with the situation”.

“We have not yet reached the situation of saying that we must urgently launch an international appeal”, he added. “Further the people are confident that, if we work together, we can minimize the situation”.

Rosario promised aid from the central government. At this stage, the government will provide 40 million meticais (about US$851,000) for drought relief in the south of the country. The money comes from the contingency plan for natural disasters drawn up last year.

But in the medium and long term, the Prime Minister said, “we have to concentrate on structuring projects such as the Mapai Dam”. He announced that the tender for the environmental study for this new dam, to control the flow of the Limpopo river, has been launched.

Rosario said that the existing Massingir dam, on the Elephants River, the major tributary of the Limpopo, is being repaired so that can play its role in irrigation and electricity generation. The discharges from Massingir were increased to 27 cubic metres of water a second as from 2 February, in an attempt to save the Limpopo Valley rice harvest.

Rosario announced that the Disaster Management Consultative Council (CCGC) will meet in Maputo on Monday to discuss speeding up assistance to people suffering from drought in the south and from flooding in the far north.

Source: AIM