Mozambique: African Road Funds move to user-pays approach

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Mozambique: African Road Funds move to user-pays approach

8:42 CAT | 06 Dec 2021

FILE PHOTO - Domingo

Mozambique’s Deputy Minister of Public Works, Cecilia Chamutota, has stressed the importance of awareness building within African societies about the need for public involvement in road maintenance through the “user-pays” approach, according to a report in the Maputo daily “Noticias”.

Addressing on Thursday the opening session of the African Road Maintenance Funds Association of Southern Africa Focal Group (ASAFG), Chamutota said the most viable and sustainable approach is the construction of toll-gates as a tool to raise income, and thus avert the collapse of traditional financing systems based on fuel tax.

“We have to develop and strengthen the approach of the toll-gates programme which will enable the achievement of the user-pays principle, seen as a solution for the sustainability of investments in the road sector and for generating social and economic benefits for our countries,” Chamutota stressed.

She declared that Mozambique spends, every five year, 73 billion meticais (about 1.1 billion US dollars, at the current exchange rate) in road maintenance.

The African Union, she added, has passed the African Infrastructure Development Plan 2012-2040, which entails coordinated and solid strategic planning, as well as the mobilisation of every financing source both public and private.

“Roads are a valuable asset for the economic competitiveness of our countries. A good road contributes significantly to efficiency and fast-tracks economic growth. It facilitates world economic integration, improves people’s living standards and promotes trade and investments,” Chamutota highlighted.

Mozambique’s Road Fund, which currently chairs ASAFG, said that the basic financial principle establishes that users must at least pay routine and periodic maintenance of the road network, even if taxes and grants will still pay for longer term rehabilitation and for new roads.

Source: AIM