Mozambique: IFC pledges to continue funding development projects
Mozambique: Zambezia needs 1.5 billion meticais to recover from rioting
8:11 CAT | 28 Jul 2025
Photo: Presidency
The central Mozambican province of Zambezia needs 1.5 billion meticais (about 23 million US dollars, at the current exchange rate) to repair the damage caused by the post-election rioting, according to President Daniel Chapo.
Speaking in the Zambezia provincial capital of Quelimane, on Thursday, Chapo said that among the buildings attacked by rioters were schools, health units and the police commands in Morrumbala, Namacurra and Mocubela districts.
He said he had visited several Zambezia districts “because of the violent, illegal and criminal demonstrations. There were huge losses in Zambezia calculated at 1.5 billion meticais”. The worst affected districts had many private and public buildings wrecked. District secretariats were left in ruins, as were several petrol stations and markets.
READ: Mozambique: Zambézia needs €20 million for post-protest reconstruction
“We cannot destroy our own house”, declared Chapo, “because tomorrow we may need the things that we are now destroying. People destroyed petrol pumps, and they woke up the following day to find that there was nowhere where they could refuel their cars”.
He claimed that the same people who had vandalised commercial infrastructures then tried to organise other demonstrations against food and fuel shortages and price rises which resulted precisely from the rioting they had stoked.
The rioting was in protest against the results from the October general elections, which were widely regarded as fraudulent.
Chapo said the government is determined to carry out “structuring projects” in Zambezia, such as a bridge over the Licungo river in Mocuba district, and a network of roads between the districts of the province. These projects were to have been paid for by the United States, through the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). But the regime headed by President Donald Trump has bulldozed most US foreign aid, including the MCA and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
But even though the US has withdrawn its support, the Mozambican government will carry on without the Americans. “We are taking the decision that next year, come rain, come shine, with or without the MCA, we shall build the bridge and the roads”, declared Chapo.
He was also confident that the project to build a new deep water port at Macuse will go ahead, and provide a large number of jobs for young people in Zambezia. If built, this port will provide new a new alternative for the export of Mozambican coal.
Chapo added that the government is in discussions with the publicly owned rail and port company to transport the port of Quelimane into a reference port for developing the province. He also promised to bring industry back to Zambezia – much of Zambezia’s industry, such as its tea and sugar processing factories, was destroyed by the apartheid-backed Renamo rebels during the war of destabilisation.
Source: AIM
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