Mozambique: Balama graphite to be exported via Pemba - AIM
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The Confederation of Economic Associations of Mozambique (CTA) is stepping up pressure for a greater national participation in multinational Sasol’s goods and services supply tenders, as a way of contributing to the sustainable development of local entrepreneurs.
The CTA says it wants half of Sasol’s procurement to be filled by Mozambican companies by December of this year, and calls for tenders to be advertised in the national media, as it was put by Florival Mucave, CTA’s deputy chairman for Mineral Resources, Hydrocarbons and Energy, at a press conference in Maputo.
Because of the absence of a local content law, only 30 percent of the multinational’s procurement had gone to Mozambican companies in the 10 years since Sasol started exploiting the Pande and Temane gas reserves, Mucave said.
“In addition, a significant percentage of this 30 percent is made by limited companies, the majority of whose shares are owned by foreigners, and which are only registered here in Mozambique while they are, in fact, South African,” he added.
In order to demonstrate transparency Sasol must, in partnership with the CTA, carry out an audit of its subcontractors to ascertain their true origin.
According to Mucave, what currently happens is that oil and gas concessionaire companies are forcing Mozambican firms who want to participate as subcontractors, suppliers of goods or services, to register in South Africa.
For the CTA, this obligation for Mozambican companies to register in a foreign jurisdiction in order to be eligible is unacceptable, and Mucave is appealing to the government to instruct concessionaires to stop this practice with immediate effect.
He also pointed out that concessionaires in the Rovuma Basin’s Areas 1 and 4 will be exempt from the Local Content Law by virtue of Decree Law 4/2014, through which they are entitled to fiscal and contractual stability for the concession period.
“But also in relation to the Rovuma Basin, it is important to highlight that all the costs incurred by the concessionaires in professional training projects, social projects and others essential for the activities of the concessionaires, are recoverable. In other words, they are deducted from the taxes to be paid by the concessionaires,” he added.
In these circumstances, the CTA requires that, as has been done in Angola, Nigeria and Trinidad and Tobago, Rovuma Basin concessionaires and Sasol, in partnership with the CTA, create a Training Fund for National Business Owners (FFEN) aimed at transferring know-how to small and medium-sized national companies, so that they can participate fully in the oil and gas industry.
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