Mozambique: FME calls for Chinese firm to be banned from contracting with the State

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Mozambique: FME calls for Chinese firm to be banned from contracting with the State

2:28 CAT | 18 Jan 2024

Image: O País

The Mozambican Federation of Contractors (FME) will ask the government to ban a Chinese company from doing construction work for the state after the Public Prosecutor’s Office called for the suspension of a tender awarded to the firm.

The Central Office for Combating Corruption (GCCC), an entity of the Attorney General’s Office, this month urged the Ministry of Transport and Communications to suspend the tendering process for road construction work in the municipality of Matola, southern Mozambique, as part of the urban mobility project for the Maputo metropolitan area, under the remit of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, due to irregularities.

The project is financed by the World Bank to the tune of $250 million (€229.9 million).

“The Mozambican Federation of Contractors is going to report this company [which won the tender] to the Functional Unit for State Procurement at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, with a view to getting this contractor banned from contracting with the state,” said the president of the FME, Bento Machaíla, at a press conference.

Machaíla accused the Chinese contractor of repeatedly practising “irregularities that are harmful to the good environment of competition, transparency and participation in public works tenders”.

The construction company has already had a tender it won in Inhambane province, southern Mozambique, cancelled by the judicial authorities for alleged involvement in “scams”.

As well as requesting that the Chinese company be banned from contracting with the state, FME will ask the Licensing Commission for Civil Construction Contractors and Consultants at the Ministry of Public Works, Housing and Water Resources (MOPHRH) to initiate disciplinary proceedings for the serious and repeated violation of its duties as a contractor, he added.

The Mozambican contractors point out that there is evidence of a breach of contracting rules on the part of the bidder declared the winner by the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC), in the aforementioned tender that was the subject of suspicions raised by the GCCC.

On the other hand, there was also alleged interference by a senior official in the results of the tender without her being part of the jury.

“The FME has repeatedly questioned the actions of the procurement management and execution units set up in state institutions, in which they flagrantly make decisions in favour of companies that do not meet eligibility requirements in public works contracting processes, to the detriment of other bidders,” said Bento Machaíla.

Machaíla said that “the favouritism is directed towards foreign companies that unfairly and criminally use loopholes in Mozambican legislation to gain advantages in public tenders, harming national companies, especially small and medium-sized construction companies”.

This month, the GCCC, an entity of the Attorney General’s Office, urged the Ministry of Transport and Communications to suspend the tendering process for road construction work in the municipality of Matola as part of the urban mobility project for the Maputo metropolitan area, which is under the remit of the Ministry of Transport and Communications due to irregularities.