The Mozambican Dredging Company (EMODRAGA) intends to ensure full navigability at Beira Port and step up dredging work at other national ports, with a view to ensuring the movement of ships and facilitating maritime trade with Mozambique and the countries of the hinterland.

The priority was announced this Thursday in Maputo by EMODRAGA’s newly sworn-in Chairperson of the Board of Directors, Paulo Jafar Tarmamade, who considers dredging essential to ensuring the regular operation of the country’s port infrastructure.

According to Tarmamade, EMODRAGA plays a strategic role in maintaining access conditions at Mozambican ports, ensuring the depth required for ships to navigate and, consequently, supporting the development of commercial activities.

“EMODRAGA is what ensures the conditions for ships to access Mozambican ports, enabling trade throughout the hinterland region and in Mozambique,” he said.

Paulo Tarmamade highlighted, in particular, the strategic importance of Beira Port, whose geographical location, between the Púnguè and Búzi rivers, makes regular dredging work essential.

He explained that the two rivers continuously carry and deposit sediment in the port’s access channel, making its periodic removal necessary to maintain the depth required for navigation.

“It is necessary to restore navigability conditions and ensure that the channel has the depth required to allow ships to pass,” he stressed.

The EMODRAGA chairperson warned that the absence of regular dredging work could jeopardise the operation of Beira Port, creating constraints not only in the access channel but also at the berths and in the manoeuvring basins, which are essential areas for port operations.

In this context, he argued that interventions must be carried out to maintain the operational conditions of the entire port complex, avoiding restrictions on the entry, berthing and manoeuvring of vessels.

Tarmamade added that EMODRAGA’s strategy is not limited to Beira Port, but should also cover the country’s other ports, in order to ensure better navigability conditions and more efficient maritime operations.