The Municipal Council of Maputo (CMM), the Mozambican capital, is mobilising additional financial resources to improve the solid waste collection service.
The aim of the action is to enable the resumption of this service, which has been interrupted in various parts of the municipality.
In addition to the financial resources, the CMM is coordinating with the Mozambican Association of Micro-Enterprises for the Provision of Services (AMMEPS) to help identify and map critical sites, in order to facilitate the prioritisation of interventions.
A press release received this Sunday (07) by the AIM newsroom states that “in view of the situation, the CMM has used its own available resources to cover the interruption of services by the contracted company.”
It should be remembered that in order to improve efficiency in the management of this service, the municipality decided to outsource the secondary collection, transport and final disposal of rubbish at the Hulene dump.
According to the source, “after a period in which this option seemed to be the right one, the Municipality began to experience a financial inability to immediately settle the invoices submitted by the service providers”.
This problem, explains the council, “led to the accumulation of debts totalling huge amounts, especially with two of the contracted companies.”
Aware of the problems caused by the lack of timely payment to the companies contracted to provide the service, the CMM “has been following a financial management plan that prioritises partial payments to these companies every month, sometimes sacrificing equally important activities, particularly investments in infrastructure.”
CMM recognises that despite this effort, “the gap between the payments made and the accumulated debt has been growing steadily, generating an atmosphere of tension between the municipality and the managers of the contracted companies.”
“This situation worsens particularly as the festive season approaches, leading to frequent threats of services being paralysed,” explains the CMM.
The source said that in the days following the contracted company’s announcement that collection would be stopped, the Planning and Finance and Territorial Planning, Environment and Construction departments “worked hard to find ways to reassure the company and sensitise it not to paralyse services.”
It should be noted that the total debt with the company, “with signs of payment made throughout the week”, is around 160 million meticais (around 2.5 million dollars) of invoices processed by CMM and dates from February to December 2023.
AIM
