Maputo, 27 Aug (AIM) – Two prominent Mozambican NGOs, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), have denounced conflicts of interest and favoritism after a company allegedly related to the Minister of Agriculture, Roberto Albino, won a public tender budgeted at 130 million meticais (about two million US dollars at the current exchange rate).
According to the NGOs, the company in question, Future Technologies of Mozambique, was created in April of this year, and was awarded the public tender by the country’s Cotton and Oilseeds Institute (IAOM) to develop and operate a digitalization platform for the cotton and oilseed value chains.
According to CDD representative André Mulungo, in addition to the company lacking the time and technical capacity to do this job properly, its bid was higher than those of other companies that submitted bids for the contract.
“One of the criteria the State uses for contracting is the lowest price, and this was not applied in a tender that included highly rated and more experienced companies, which, incidentally, submitted lower bids. There are many things that are not right and that need to be clarified in order to create an environment of transparency in public tenders”, Mulungo said.
The CDD has called on the Administrative Tribunal (AT), the body responsible for checking the legality of public expenditure, to cancel the tender as a way of safeguarding the integrity of the State.
“The Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) should also intervene with the utmost urgency to hold everyone involved in the entire process accountable”, Mulungo said.
According to research undertaken by CIP, Future Technologies of Mozambique is part of a business network involving the current Agriculture Minister “and this is a clear case of conflict of interest and violation of the Public Probity Law.”
For his part, the government spokesperson and Minister of State Administration, Inocêncio Impissa, when questioned about the case, said “I do not have details”.
But he told reporters “we can say that public tenders of this sort are carried out by a jury consisting of suitable people to lead the process to its conclusion.”
“If it is observed that there was a lack of transparency, the PGR will take action to review the entire process”, he said.
(AIM)
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