Mozambique: Contractors call for transparency in state tenders

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Mozambique: Contractors call for transparency in state tenders

4:28 CAT | 25 May 2020

FILE-For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Folha de Maputo]

The chairperson of the Nampula Provincial Association of Contractors (AEMPRENA), in northern Mozambique, Uneiza Issufo, has urged the government to eliminate the lack of transparency in awarding contracts for state building jobs.

She wanted the government to find solutions that can end the current situation, in which a large number of building jobs are unfinished.

According to the Secretary of State for Nampula, Mety Gondola, this has already cost the Mozambican state more than 300 million meticais (about 3.4 million US dollars at current exchange rates).

Gondola revealed that sum at a meeting last Thursday with Nampula contractors at which he said an inquiry has identified abandoned, paralysed and badly executed jobs scattered across the 23 districts of the province.

He guaranteed that the State is taking action to ensure either that work on these jobs is resumed and corrected, or that the contractors concerned return the money which the State has paid them.

In reaction, Issufo said that AEMPRENA wants to collaborate with the government in identifying all anomalies, since it has every interest in finding a solution.

“As an association of contractors, we are aware of this situation, and we shall collaborate so that all the problems may be identified and checked, case by case”, she said. “But it must also be understood that the contractor is the visible part in front, but at the back there are many things that could have happened”.

Issufo, who is a civil engineer by profession, said that all pending questions should be cleared up, in order to improve the business environment in the sector.

“Yes, we recognise that there are contractors who do not honour their commitments”, she said. “Unfortunately, we see this in many sectors of activity and even in families. This is not normal, we have to fight against it and so we shall collaborate”.

In Nampula, Issufo added, there are currently 530 contractors, 250 of whom are members of AEMPRENA. She said the building industry has been in crisis in Nampula for the last three years, and over 100 building companies have closed down.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has only made the situation worse”, said Issufo. “We are facing cancelled contracts, and delayed payments, so it’s very difficult to function in full”.

During the meeting between Gondola and the contractors, the latter complained that the State itself damages the interests of contractors. They pointed to lack of transparency in awarding contracts, unfair competition, and delayed payment for work already done for state bodies.

Tania Semedo, of the company “Africa Building” said that in the Nampula delegation of the National Roads Administration (ANE), tenders for building work are only won by companies set up by ANE officials and their relatives.

Contractors who do not enter into partnership with the companies created by ANE staff never win tenders, she claimed, “This disturbs us”, said Semedo. “The group of staff who collaborate in this sort of behaviour must be dismantled”.

Faizal Sale, of the company Construcoes ECRAM, agreed with Semedo that the tenders launched by ANE in Nampula “are won in a strange manner”.

“We’ve been worried by this since 2017”, he said. “The tenders are launched and, strange as it may seem, the companies that win the contracts belong to ANE staff members themselves”. Many of these companies, he accused, do not even have competent technical staff or the equipment that would allow them to carry out the jobs paid for by the state.

“There is a network of corruption installed in ANE”, he declared. “They create companies among themselves and their relatives and they compete with us. Even when we present competitive prices, we lose. So why do they bother to launch public tenders, if the winners are known in advance?”

Source: AIM