Deputies Inspect Maputo Water Supply Expansion

20 April 2011

Maputo — Members of the Plan and Budget Commission (CPO) of the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, believe that Mozambique can attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for water supply, at least as regards urban areas.

The key water supply target in the MDGs is to reduce by half, between 1990 and 2015, the percentage of the population without access to safe drinking water and decent sanitation.

The chairperson of the CPO, and former mayor of Maputo, Eneas Comiche, expressed this optimism on Tuesday at the end of a visit to the project to improve and expand water supply to Maputo, the neighbouring city of Matola and the district of Boane.

Officials of the government’s Water Supply Investment and Assets Fund (FIPAG) told the CPO delegation that the various projects under way in the country will allow clean water to reach 70 per cent of the urban population by 2014.

The most ambitious of the projects is certainly in Maputo, Matola and Boane, where the number of consumers supplied by the public water system is set to more than double – from 700,000 to 1.5 million – with water available for 24 hours a day.

To check the feasibility of this prediction, the parliamentarians visited the water treatment station on the Umbeluzi river, the distribution centre at Tsalala in Matola, and construction work on the Matola-Rio and Boane distribution centres.

The project manager, Judite Manhique, told the CPO delegation that 70 per cent of the work is now complete, and its conclusion is scheduled for early in the second half of the year.

“Achievement of the MDGs with regard to urban water supply will be possible”, declared Comiche. “By 2014-2015, we will have a 70 per cent coverage rate in the urban areas. We can only congratulate FIPAG on the work it is undertaking”.

The work includes expanding the treatment station to allow production of an additional 96,000 cubic metres of water a day, which will allow water to flow from the taps continually.

Old, obsolete piping is being replaced, and a new 19 kilometre water main is being laid between Umbeluzi and Matola. 600 kilometres of pipes are being installed to connect the new distribution centres with various neighbourhoods in Matola and Boane, while the distribution network in outlying Maputo suburbs is being completely overhauled.

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