Moamba Major dam contract illegal

The contract for the Moamba Major dam is illegal, according to the Administrative Tribunal (TA), says @Verdade (19 Jan) The dam is now under construction and will provide more water for Maputo and Matola. The total cost is $466 mn, of which $320 is a loan from the Brazilian development bank (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Economico do Brasil, BNDES) - which also is tied to the dam being building by a Brazilian company.

The TA says the contract was given to Grupo Andrade Gutierrez without a tender process and without the required review of the contract by the TA. A subcontractor of Gutierrez on the dam is Infra Engineering Mozambique, owned by three senior Frelimo figures: former tourism minister Fernando Sumbana Junior, former defence minister Tobias Dai (brother-in-law of Armando Guebuza) and Raimundo Pachinuapa. @ Verdade cites Brazilian federal police documents to say that a former Guiterrez official in Mozambique told the police that the contract to Guiterrez was conditional on using Infra as a subcontractor.

Andrade Gutierrez is one of the companies involved in the Brazilian Lavo Jato ("car wash") bribery scandal, but in November the Brazilian ambassador Rodrigo Soares assured Mozambique that the Brazilian $320 mn would continue to be dispersed. (AIM 10 Nov 2016)

In MOZAMBIQUE 355 News reports & clippings, 22 January 2017