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MOZAMBIQUE: COST OF PESTICIDE INCINERATION RISES

AIM (Agencia Informação Moçambique) News

MAPUTO, Mozambique, 23 February 1999 -- The cost to the Danish taxpayer of a project to destroy Mozambique's obsolete pesticides has risen by over 35 per cent, according to a report in Tuesday's issue of the independent newsheet "Metical".

The paper cites a letter sent by Danish Cooperation Minister Poul Nielsen to the Mozambican environmental group Livaningo, in which Poulsen says the cost has gone up, from the initial estimate of 42 million Danish crowns to 56.9 million crowns (8.5 million US dollars), because it turned out that the amount of dangerous and obsolete pesticides scattered around the country was much larger than initially thought.

It was thought there were 540 tonnes of the chemicals to be disposed of: but by the end of 1998 that figure had risen to 900 tonnes.

Poulsen's letter restated the Danish authorities' commitment to incinerating the pesticides in the furnaces of the cement factory in the southern city of Matola, despite the campaign waged by Livaningo against burning highly toxic material in the middle of a densely populated area.

"Up until now, incineration is the only reasonable solution that has been presented," Poulsen declared.

He also had unusually harsh words to say against Livaningo, accusing the organisation of "deliberately misinforming the public" about the proposed incineration. In particular, he claimed that photos of the cement factory workers presented to the press were false.

"The people shown in the photos were not in fact employed by the factory," he said.

Livaningo has also come under fire from the Mozambican Environment Minister, Bernardo Ferraz, for daring to write to Poulsen in the first place.

He told Livaningo "I don't see any convincing reason why you are placing your concerns before a foreign cooperation partner, rather than to the Mozambican authorities responsible for the project. This question is particularly disagreeable."

Ferraz claimed there had been no lack of transparency about the planned incineration, because "both the government authorities and Danida (the Danish aid agency) have made an honest effort to inform and discuss the project with all the interested parties, in particularly with Mozambican civil society, right from the start."

(AIM)

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