On Friday in Maputo, Mozambique, Botswana and Zimbabwe will sign new agreements for the operationalisation of the Techobanine Port Integrated Project, which has been stranded for almost 15 years.
This is a project budgeted at 6.5 billion dollars, for the construction of a deep-water port in Techobanine, Matutuine district, and a 1,700 kilometre railway line linking Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana, which has been on the table since 2010 due to a lack of funding.
This Monday, after the eighth joint cooperation commission between Mozambique and Botswana, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Verónica Macamo, announced that by Friday the three countries involved will sign an agreement that could finally get the project off the ground.
“I think it’s this time, because there has been a lot of talk, but a tripartite agreement has never been signed. This is important because, if we are attentive, this project needs a lot of synergy and resource mobilisation and now the three countries will be collaborating so that the project can actually happen,” said the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Verónica Macamo.
At the meeting held on Monday, the two countries proposed agreements aimed at raising the quality of life of both peoples.
“We are actually going to sign very important instruments to boost not only relations between our peoples. We decided that we wanted to raise economic, political and diplomatic relations. We need to give our fellow citizens a better life,” said Verónica Macamo.
To this end, this Wednesday the President of Botswana will pay a state visit to Mozambican, during which memoranda of understanding negotiated at this meeting will be signed. The agreements relate to “politics, democracy, the legal field, defence and security, the economy and the social and cultural fields”, according to the minister.
Notwithstanding the signing of the agreements, the most important thing is their operationalisation, argues Botswana’s foreign minister.
“What is most important, apart from signing, is the implementation of the agreements, because they are important for the development of the people between the two countries,” argued Botswana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Lemogang Kwape.
A total of eight agreements will be initialled during Mokgoetsi Masisi’s visit to Mozambique.
O País
