Victims of Hulene collapse criticise election candidates – Mozambique Elections, AIM report

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Victims of Hulene collapse criticise election candidates – Mozambique Elections, AIM report

9:15 CAT | 28 Sep 2018

File photo: DW

People who had lost homes and loved ones in the collapse of Maputo’s main rubbish dump in February on Friday complained that they have been marginalised by the political parties in the current municipal election campaign.

The unsightly and foul-smelling dump is in the neighbourhood of Hulene. By the time of the collapse, it had grown to the height of a five story building, and more rubbish was added every day.

Despite the obvious health dangers posed by the dump, some people opted to live there, building houses in the shadow of the dump. A good number of them made a living scavenging on the dump, collecting items that could be resold or recycled.

Tragedy struck on 19 February, when, after heavy rain, part of the dump collapsed, engulfing the houses beneath it, and killing 17 people. This was completely avoidable in that the Municipal Council had for many years promised to remove the dump, but had taken no action, and had allowed people to continue living there illegally.

After the disaster, the Council resettled people who had been living in the immediate vicinity of the dump in temporary accommodation, and then found them plots of land outside the city, in Marracuene district.

An NGO, the Civil Society Centre for Learning and Capacity Building (CSCE), on Friday arranged a face-to-face meeting between some Hulene survivors and representatives of the political parties.

One of the Hulene residents, Ana Simao, attacked all the mayoral candidates for failing to mention the rubbish dump in their manifestos. “I can’t understand how the candidates could have neglected our situation”, she said. “It’s the municipality that manages the dump, and it was to be expected that at least one of you would have broached the issue, even if only superficially”.

“We haven’t heard a line about the future of the dump and the future of the victims of the collapse”, she said. “Clearly we are not part of your agenda”.

Another victim, named only as Antonio, said the politicians “should put yourselves in our shoes. The wounds have not yet healed. We want to know what will become of us when you win the elections”.

For the ruling Frelimo Party, Fernando Sumbana, the number two on the list of candidates for the Municipal Assembly, said the questions raised by the Hulene victims are legitimate and deserve special treatment because lives had been lost.

“The Frelimo Party municipal government will have to create solutions to minimise the suffering of those directly or indirectly affected by what happened on 19 February”, he said. “It is the municipality’s responsibility to ensure an acceptable outcome”.

But the awkward problem for Frelimo is that it has always been in power in Maputo, and made repeated promises to shut down the Hulene dump, which were never honoured. When the current mayor, David Simango, was re-elected in 2013, one of the key promises in his platform was to close the dump. Five years later almost nothing had been done to implement this promise.

Not surprisingly, Venancio Mondlane, campaign spokesperson for the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, blamed Frelimo for the tragedy.

Those responsible should be prosecuted, he said. “We have a rubbish dump in Hulene which killed people because of a question of negligence, and those responsible were never brought to trial”, Mondlane declared.

Yet, strangely enough, Renamo has abandoned the original demand to move the dump. Instead it now believes that the rubbish can be a source of income for households – which implies continuing the current lethal scavenging for items of value among mountains of trash.

The mayoral candidate of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), Augusto Mbazo, promised to solve the victims’ problems, by guaranteeing their definitive resettlement. “We shall minimise your suffering”, he said. “We want to give you land, finance the construction of your houses, and create social infrastructures”.

Source: AIM