R900-m bridge proposed across Zambezi River

The Mozambique government has proposed a great new plan to build a R900-million bridge across the Zambezi River – something cross-border truckers have told FTW is a “daydream”. The new bridge is supposed to cross the Zambezi at Benga, about six kilometres downstream from the now rather dilapidated Samora Machel (Tete) Bridge, where repair work forces trucks to cross one at a time, leading to peak time tailbacks of several kilometres. FTW talked to Barney Curtis, executive officer of the Federation of Eastern and Southern African Road Transport Associations (Fesarta), and he said that – although he had heard about the plan, and that he believed it was part of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) development scheme – he had nothing more recent to tell FTW. But he certainly said that no work had begun on the supposed site for the Benga Bridge. Government spokesman, Alberto Nkutumula, told the international press in July that the new bridge would allow access to the inland province of Tete, and some of the world’s largest coal deposits, enabling traffic to move between Zimbabwe and Malawi without going through Tete city. Construction and operation of the bridge is supposedly contracted to a consortium of firms. AfricaFiles reported in August that this consortium consisted of the Portuguese companies Soares da Costa and Ascendi (40% each), and the Mozambican company Infra-Engineering (20%). Among the partners in Infra-Engineering are Tourism Minister Fernando Sumbana, former Defence Minister Tobias Dai, and Raimundo Pachinuapa, a former guerrilla commander in the war for Mozambican independence. Soares da Costa and Mota Engil, the largest shareholder in Ascendi, will build the bridge. The bridge at Benga will be much stronger than the existing bridge, which is the main link between Malawi and Zimbabwe, the report added. “All the heavy traffic will use the new bridge, which is designed for maximum tonnage,” said Francisco Pereira, chair of the Mozambican government’s Road Fund. “The Samora Machel Bridge will be restricted to light vehicles and pedestrians.” Cost of the bridge will be recovered by tolls, and Pereira estimates that over 30 years the consortium will pay the equivalent of over R982-m in corporation tax and R682-m in value-added tax (VAT) on the tolls.