Angolan activist Rafael Marques de Morais on Monday called for a criminal investigation into Angola’s minister of economic coordination, José Lima Massano, on suspicion of embezzlement, influence peddling, money laundering and tax fraud.
According to the complaint submitted to the Attorney General’s Office, to which Lusa has had access, there is the alleged over-invoicing of the Currency Museum, “a simple structure, with an underground floor,” which cost $64.5 million (€61.4 million), six times its initial value.
The complaint filed by the activist and director of the investigative portal Maka Angola states that in just two years the cost of the museum went from just over $10 million (9.5 million euros) to $64.5 million.
The contract for the architectural project, signed in July 2012 by Lima Massano, then governor of the National Bank of Angola (BNA), was developed by FCL.AO-Arquitectos Associados, of the brothers Alexandre and António Falcão Costa Lopes, who charged $460,000 (€438,400) in fees, 4.5% of the estimated value of the work (US$10,195,000), whose gross construction area was initially 2,615 square metres, the document reads.
The construction contract was awarded to the consortium formed by the companies Griner, Somague and Tecnasol on 11 April 2013, for $14.4 million (€13.7 million) for “excavation, peripheral containment and foundations”, and the project was later altered, with an increase in the gross area to 4,350 square metres, which caused the value to skyrocket to $28 million (€26.7 million), and forced the payment to FCL.AO to be readjusted to $940,000 (€895,900), he added.
On 14 April 2014, Lima Massano signed a new contract with Griner and Somague to complete the structure and finishes, worth $13.6 million (€13 million). On 4 November 2014, it signed a contract for the “architecture and finishes” phase worth $16.7 million (€15.9 million).
According to the document, the contract for the fifth phase, worth $4.6 million (€4.4 million), was already signed by the new BNA governor José Pedro de Morais (appointed on the day Massano was dismissed) with Griner/Somague, for “alterations, structures and special installations”, dated May 2015. However, the work was completed in February of that same year.
“In total, the work on the small, underground museum has already exceeded $64.5 million,” writes Rafael Marques, who also lists three contracts with the company ComCultura, to equip the museum, totalling $8.8 million (€8.4 million).
“The facts are clear. There are strong indications of over-invoicing, which it will be up to the authorities to investigate,” emphasised the Angolan activist, questioning “how it is possible to sixfold a cost in two years”.
For Rafael Marques, the facts he describes “strongly indicate the commission of crimes of embezzlement, influence peddling, money laundering and tax fraud,” and he believes they should be “duly investigated”.
Lusa
