EU to fund study on improved river transport in southern Africa

Apr 20, 2007, 14:55 GMT

Lusaka - The European Union is funding a feasibility study on the navigability of the linking Shire and Zambezi rivers as part of a project to improve transportation between Malawi and Mozambique, it emerged Friday in Zambia.

The secretary-general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Erastus Mwencha, told a meeting of east and southern African transport ministers meeting in Lusaka that the EU would be funding the study, without giving details of costs.

The Zambezi River rises in Zambia and flows over 2,500 kilometres through Angola along the borders of Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, into Mozambique where it empties into the Indian Ocean.

The Shire river flows from the southern shore of Lake Malawi into the Zambezi in Mozambique.

The Shire-Zambezi Waterways project entails reopening the rivers to navigation in order to provide a direct waterway transport system between Nsanje in Malawi and the port of Chinde at the mouth of Zambezi, around 238 kilometres away.

Malawian Transport Minister Henry Mussa said in Lusaka that the communications and transport ministers from Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia would sign an agreement on April 25, 2007 to commence the project.

COMESA communications and transport ministers are attending a meeting in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, on ways of improving direct travel between the African capitals that would eliminate the need to transit through Europe.

The Kenyan secretary-general of COMESA, Erastus Mwencha, regretted that 120 million dollars was spent per annum on routing people, internet and telephone communications through Europe and the United States for the purposes of regional communication.