The Mozambican government’s Water Supply Investment and Assets Fund (FIPAG) intends to expand the water system in the capital, so that it can supply about 1.5 million people in Maputo, the neighbouring city of Matola and the district of Boane.

The project will cost €95 million (about $140 million). The money is now available and comes from the European Investment Bank, the Dutch government, the European Union and the French Development Agency. The Mozambican government is covering 13 per cent of the costs.

Announcing the project on 16 August, the chairperson of the FIPAG Board of Directors, Nelson Beete, said the studies are in their final stages and it is expected that the tenders will be launched later this year, so that work can start in 2009.

The project seeks to expand the water treatment station on the Umbeluzi River so that it can treat 10,000 cubic metres an hour instead of the current 6,000. The project also envisages building a new mains pipe from Umbeluzi to Matola. There will be three new distribution centres in Belo Horizonte, Matola Rio and Boane, and when they are finished the network will have some 500 kilometres of pipes.

Much of the existing network is obsolete, and the majority of the water pumped at Umbeluzi never reaches the taps. FIPAG estimates water losses at an alarming 60 per cent: it hopes to reduce this to 40 per cent.

Beete said that, over the last two years, about $2 million have been invested just in repairing the network. He said FIPAG is continuing its efforts to improve the situation, but results cannot be expected “from one day to the next”

“We are continuing to repair the network gradually”, he said. “The work done so far has allowed us to reduce physical water losses by about 10 per cent”. AIM