Mozambique: Chinese-owned cement company fined

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Chinese-owned cement company fined

1:59 CAT | 31 Aug 2022

File photo> Notícias

Mozambique’s Competition Regulatory Authority (ARC) has fined the Chinese owned company Dugongo Cimentos over 20.5 million meticais (about 320,000 US dollars, at the current exchange rate) for concealing information.

The Chinese company produces clinker and construction cement. A year ago other cement companies accused it of unfair competition, after it put cement on the market at extremely low prices.

The ARC has been investigating Dugongo’s practices, and claims that the Chinese company refuses to cooperate.

According to an ARC press release, it has been attempting to extract relevant information from Dugongo since August 2021. ARC was trying to ascertain the costs of Dugongo’s production and distribution chains so that it could conclude whether the company really is guilty of anti-competitive practices.

Under Mozambican legislation on competition, failure to provide ARC with information, or the provision of false or incomplete data, makes the company liable to a fine of more than one per cent of the previous year’s turnover.

However, Dugongo denies the charges. Cited in Wednesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”, the company said it had never received a request for information from any Mozambican authority, including the ARC.

Dugongo spokesperson Rui de Carvalho claimed “no document requesting information has ever entered Dugongo requesting clarification about the company”. He added that Dugongo is willing to work with any Mozambican monitoring authority.

Despite this denial, the ARC insisted that it had sent several requests to Dugongo, and had never received a reply to any of them.

Furthermore, the chairperson of the ARC board, Iacumba Ali, has publicly stated that the ARC is looking into the charges of unfair practices levelled against Dugongo by other cement companies.

“We heard both sides, and we reached the conclusion that we needed a deeper investigation”, Ali said in early 2022. “This investigation is now under way”.

Source: AIM