The governments of Portugal and Mozambique and the construction company Mota-Engil signed on Wednesday, February 15, a memorandum of understanding for the rehabilitation of the Chapel of Nossa Senhora do Baluarte, in Mozambique Island, the oldest masonry building on the Indian Ocean coast.
“Starting today, we have the great responsibility to rehabilitate this chapel with robustness so that it can last another 500 years,” Aníbal Leite, executive director of Mota-Engil Africa, told Lusa.
The robustness is needed to face cyclones, which characterise the region, as happened a year ago when cyclone Gombe destroyed houses and infrastructure on the island, and in 2019 when cyclone Kenneth also struck the region, leaving the chapel badly damaged.
Mota-Engil will carry out the work at cost price, framing it within its social responsibility actions, for an amount that is still being assessed in technical terms, but which is expected to be able to start in May, Aníbal Leite explained. Until then, Mota-Engil will mobilise and train workers on the island of Mozambique.
The Manuel António da Mota Foundation, founder of the company, will at the same time make a monetary contribution to the requalification. The work should take “six to eight months,” given the “complexity” of some details and material requirements, he said.
The chapel is classified heritage, the only example of Manueline architecture in Mozambique, a building erected in 1522 by the Portuguese Armada on its way to India and is within the perimeter of the Sao Sebastiao fortress. The island of Mozambique was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1991, and the Mozambican minister of Culture, Edelvina Materula, hopes that Mota-Engil’s action extends beyond the rehabilitation of the chapel, an extension provided for in the memorandum signed last 15.
The governor described the signing of the agreement as “a gesture of friendship, brotherhood and cooperation”, which shows “the common will to continue on this path” of requalification with the expectation that it will be a long one. “I hope you have seen the size of this fortress. And it doesn’t end there: the island is much more than the fortress,” he said, as he thanked Aníbal Leite for the partnership and after signing the document alongside Francisco André, the Portuguese secretary of state for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, who is visiting Mozambique.
Camões – Institute for Cooperation and Language has a cooperation hub in several areas on Mozambique island and will support the rehabilitation of the chapel, at Mozambique’s request.
Francisco André explained to Lusa, about the partnership with Mota-Engil, that “the Mozambican side identified the need to find a private partner with experience and capacity to carry out” this activity, given the “imminent danger” of the chapel’s foundations collapsing.
“In this dialogue, Mota-Engil appears as a private partner available to participate and is doing so under its social responsibility with a financial contribution to support the costs of the work itself,” said the Portuguese leader. “Portugal will do as it always does in its cooperation with Mozambique: we have found the project and now we will agree the details of our financial support to the Mozambican authorities,” which is “the owner of the work” and which will talk to the contractor, a “negotiation to which Portugal is completely unrelated,” the official clarified.
He concluded: “what we did was answer ‘yes’ to Mozambique and show our willingness to financially support this project which we feel is importan
