Mozambique: Administrative Tribunal rejects contract involving Minister of Agriculture – AIM report

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Administrative Tribunal rejects contract involving Minister of Agriculture – AIM report

4:30 CAT | 19 Sep 2025

FILE - According to a document made public by the CDD, after it filed an administrative action requesting the cancellation of the public tender, the AT has decided not to approve the contract after identifying serious flaws in the award process. [File photo: Folha de Maputo]

The Administrative Tribunal (AT), the body responsible for checking the legality of Mozambican public expenditure, has refused approval for the controversial contract signed between the country’s Cotton and Oilseeds Institute (IAOM) and Future Technologies of Mozambique, a company allegedly related to the Minister of Agriculture, Roberto Albino.

The contract, which was signed after a controversial public tender won by Future Technologies, was budgeted at 130 million meticais (about two million US dollars, at the current exchange rate).

The chosen company had to develop of a platform for the digitalization of cotton and oilseed value chains. However, two prominent Mozambican NGOs, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), had warned that the tender was awarded to a company that lacks qualifications and is “involved in conflicts of interest and favouritism.”

According to a document made public by the CDD, after it filed an administrative action requesting the cancellation of the public tender, the AT has decided not to approve the contract after identifying serious flaws in the award process.

The AT claimed “there was a lack of legally accepted criteria and failure to observe the most advantageous conditions for the State, thus rendering the contract legally unenforceable and without any financial effect.”

In the document, signed by three AT judges, plus the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the AT stressed that the process is full of irregularities and that the “bids evaluated lack transparent justification”.

The AT also noted that Future Technologies is owned by Paulo Auade Júnior, son of Paulo Auade, the former Governor of Tete province, and the business partner of Roberto Albino through a separate company, Flamingo Investments.

Source: AIM