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.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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