The Maputo City Administrative Court has just ordered the Mphanda Nkuwa Hydroelectric Project Implementation Office (GMNK) and the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy (MIREME) to provide the information requested by Mozambican organisation Justiça Ambiental (JA!). In case no. 63/2024, JA! had appealed to the Court requesting that the GMNK and MIREME be ordered to provide information on safeguarding the fundamental rights of local communities affected by the implementation of the controversial Mphanda Nkuwa dam, proposed to be built on the Zambezi River in Tete province.
The battle for access to information relating to the latest stage of the Mphanda Nkuwa project has been going on since 2019. Since then, JA! has made numerous and successive attempts to obtain information from the GMNK, through letters and even meetings, about the studies that will be carried out and their respective terms of reference, how new components will be integrated into the studies (bearing in mind that issues such as climate change, for example, have never been covered in previous studies), how the project will ensure that the voices and rights of local communities will be respected, among many other questions. Despite an apparent openness to dialogue with JA!, the GMNK has always limited itself to evasive, superficial answers, without providing any of the documents requested.
Read our communiqué and the ruling here –
https://ja4change.org/2025/02/28/press-release-justica-ambiental-wins-legal-battle-against-the-mphanda-nkuwa-dam-implementation-office-the-government-is-now-obliged-to-provide-information-about-the-project/
https://moz24h.co.mz/justica-ambiental-wins-legal-battle/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger
