As Mozambique prepares for its independence on the 25th of June this year, the country will also be commissioning Africa’s longest suspension bridge which has been under construction in the past months.
Interestingly, the Maputo-Catembe Bridge, as it is called, is a 3km-long bridge which connects Maputo to Catembe and its worth US$700m, forming part of the country’s major projects for the roads infrastructure this year.
Following the construction of the bridge, drivers will no longer have to spend nine long hours trying to cross over from the southern part of Maputo Bay to Catembe as it will only cost them a four hours journey, from Maputo to Catembe going forward.
The bridge has been structured in a width of 680m that can accommodate high volumes of traffic comfortably in both directions, thereby allowing free movements of goods and tourists from South Africa and Swaziland into Mozambique.
This development is a product of the joint construction and management project between the Mozambique and Chinese governments under the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) and was set for completion in 2017 but was postponed due to insufficient construction materials.
“After verifying that it was not possible to complete the work in 2017, we defined the first half of this year as a new deadline to finish the construction of the bridge and so far the work executed accounts up to 97% of the project,” said Silva Magaia, the president of Empresa de Desenvolvimento de Maputo Sul.
Maputo-Catembe Bridge is set to promote and facilitate development in the country especially at the Catembe area, particularly in commercial and housing sectors, overcoming the problem of a lack of space for more buildings in the capital city.
Apart from being Africa’s longest suspension bridge, the Maputo-Catembe will also be ranked among the 60 largest suspended bridges in the world.
