Maputo’s coastal protection is collapsing, municipality has no money for repairs – A Verdade

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Maputo’s coastal protection is collapsing, municipality has no money for repairs – A Verdade

4:35 CAT | 11 Nov 2019

[Photo: Adério Calderia / A Verdade]

Maputo mayor Eneas Comiche ahs told @Verdade that the Maputo City Council does not have the money to repair the coastal protection of sections of Maputo’s Avenue Marginal which, although only five years old, has proved no match for the force of the sea.

The defectiveness of the works become evident just as Mozambique must start repaying the US$22 million the Saudi Development Fund and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA)and paid to the Egyptian and Portuguese contractors.

Several sections of the coast protection barrier collapsed in the early days of Mozambique’s last rainy season. Climate change and high waves were fingered as the cause of the damage, but the infrastructure, inaugurated in 2014 by former Mayor David Simango, was built precisely to protect the road.

For more than a year now, even a layman has been able to see the cracks in the barrier, which stretches from below the Viaduto Alcântara Santos to beyond the Triunfo neighbourhood.

A few metres from the Jardim do Centenário, close to a dozen big concrete blocks, the walls have fallen down and it is possible to see how the sidewalk is being undermined

A few hundred metres beyond the Naval Club, the wall shows signs of fragility and looks in danger of imminent collapse. Even more dramatic is the scene between the Triunfo and Tidal neighbourhoods, where part of the parapet has fallen over, and three sections of the protective wall and the surrounding areas threaten to collapse at any incoming tide.

Marginal-muro1 — *[Photo: Adério Calderia / A Verdade]*

@Verdade learned that when the collapse occurred, the Chinese contractor which rehabilitated Avenida Marginal and built the Maputo Ring Road tried to minimise the damage and, as a way of protecting the road, blocked access to areas where the damage is most severe.

The Maputo City Coastal Protection Barrier dates back to the previous decade. Funding was obtained in 2008 from the Saudi Development Fund and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa – two loans worth US$22 million with very low interest rates and a grace period of 10 years, which the Mozambican state will now have to start paying off.

Repairs of damaged sections have now become a new project, still being discussed with the central Government

The works, which consisted of repairs to some sections, the construction of the protective wall and seven groins a few hundred metres long jutting into the sea were awarded to a consortium called RME/MCA Limitada, which was created specifically to win the tender.

Paredao-aruir — *[Photo: Adério Calderia / A Verdade]*

@Verdade revealed that the consortium created in December 2012 was formed by the Egyptian company Roward Mordein Engineering, the public limited company MCA Mozambique, the Portuguese public company M.Couto Alves and an Angolan company.

The current Maputo City Council president told @Verdade there was no guarantee that the original consortium, which pocketed the US$ 22 million, would undertake the maintenance

Eneas Comiche explained that the repair of damaged sections will be a new project which is still being articulated with the Central Government.

“This week I have met the Minister of Public Works and Housing to articulate a plan for greater coastal protection. It will cover not only that zone, but will embrace the entire coast, incorporating vegetation for soil retention.”

Comiche said that there will naturally be new costs for the repair, recalling that it was during his first time chairing Maputo City Council that the project was negotiated.

Paredao-fim-duna — *[Photo: Adério Calderia / A Verdade]*

“When I invited the president of BADEA, in 2008, the idea was to cover the entire coast starting from the place where it actually started. However, from there onward, it [protection ] is still necessary, and we will have to do it.”

From opposite the Marés shopping mall to the Costa do Sol restaurant there is no coastal protection wall. Where the wall ends, after the Triunfo neighbourhood, there is a dune, much used for cooking, below which beach-goers eat and drink indifferent to the risk of imminent collapse.

By Adérito Caldeira

Source: A Verdade