The Mozambican Federation of Contractors (FME) denounced the existence of irregularities in the process of awarding public works as part of the Maputo Metropolitan Area Urban Mobility project, also known as ‘Move Maputo’. The contract was valued at 250 million dollars (15.8 billion meticals) and will be financed by the World Bank.
Quoted by Semanário Económico, the president of FME, Bento Machaila, explained that there had been interference from a senior official who was not part of the evaluation jury or the Procurement Executive Management Unit (UGEA), emphasising that the proposal submitted by the China Jiangxi for International Economic and Technical Cooperation (CJIC) consortium, previously considered unviable, was the one that was approved.
‘The FME identified two recurring fraudulent practices in this and other processes, namely the use of hybrid documentation, combining elements from foreign and local companies, which confuses the evaluation of legal and technical qualifications, as well as the omission of prices for key items in the tenders, allowing the artificial reduction of the costs presented and resulting, after the award, in costly contractual increases,’ he warned.
According to Machaila, these irregularities harm the state, fair competition and national companies, contributing to an increase in unemployment and negatively impacting the economy, emphasising that formal complaints have been sent to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the World Bank, the Licensing Commission for Civil Construction Contractors and Consultants (CLECCC) and the Functional Procurement Supervision Unit (UFSA).
However, the FME said that it had yet to receive any concrete responses from any organisation. ‘The silence of public institutions and international funders is seen as an incentive to irregularities and institutional weaknesses that jeopardise public procurement processes,’ he said.
In his speech, the head of the contractors’ association revealed the existence of weaknesses in public procurement legislation, which, in a way, ends up favouring foreign companies to the detriment of national competitors.
FME emphasised the need for legislative and institutional reforms to guarantee transparency and protect the interests of national companies, calling for the implementation of better competition and supervision practices to ensure that public resources are managed with integrity.
