Africa’s economic growth depends largely on access routes that leverage the flow of products from districts to cities, as well as the international flow of products and goods, opening floodgates for the creation of more companies and fast communication points.

Road integrity in Mozambique

Mozambique is unified from North to South by National Road No. 1, which is approximately 2,477.00 km long. The total road and highway network in Mozambique is 30,562 km, which is 0.90 m for every 33,900,000 inhabitants. Of these, only 19% of the roads are paved and the rest are dirt roads, or in other words, only 5,958.00 km are paved, placing Mozambique in 97th position in the world. Mozambican roads are in poor condition, which caused approximately 8,573.00 deaths due to accidents between 2014-2019. National Road N1 is full of potholes, has no signage and large stretches of unpaved road, which forces truck drivers to make a one-day trip in three days. Road rehabilitation was part of the government’s five-year plan for 2019-2024, where it was estimated that around $1,000,000,000 would be needed to rehabilitate the entire section of National Road No. 1, with the project starting in 2022. Of the stipulated amount, the government obtained support of $1,200,000,000, part of which was donated by the World Bank and the other by the United Arab Emirates.

From promises to slow implementation of rehabilitation: and the likely solution

Even with the available funds, the Mozambican government has preferred emergency rehabilitation of roads, rather than root works, with the root rehabilitation work of the sections being carried out in 2022, as promised. So far, small part has been done, leaving the management of state resources in the shadows, while the roads remain in a state of disrepair. The current perspective is to create an alternative road that connects all of Mozambique, but this sounds like a utopia, given that not even the rehabilitation of the existing N1 is possible. In this context, there is a need to create a commission of inquiry to assess the management of road resources in Mozambique, combined with the phased rehabilitation of resilient tarmac roads, while implementing the plan to create a railway network called Mozfox accompanied by fiber optic cables, unifying IT with electric trains, which are capable of traveling around 160 km per hour.

Conclusion

The dynamics of Mozambique’s economy depend largely on the seriousness of the execution of road works. Given that the roads are in a state of disrepair, there is a need to rehabilitate the roads in phases, creating a commission of inquiry to investigate the management of road resources, and to consider the urgent need to create a railway network of electric trains that could be called Mozfox.