20 May 2008
Maputo — Companies that fail to meet contractually established deadlines for Mozambican public works, particularly for roads and bridges, will, from now on, be heavily fined, and may even have their licenses cancelled.
Such penalties are in fact already envisaged in the contracts they sign with the government, but have not been applied, supposedly due to the "good will" of the authorities.
The decision to start applying this measure was taken during a meeting of the Coordinating Council of the Ministry of Public Works which noted that many contractors are failing to meet the terms of their contracts, and are going unpunished.
According to Tuesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias", Public Works Minister Felicio Zacarias said, at the closing session of the Council meeting, "what has been happening all this time is that we have noted that there are contractors who fail to deliver, but there have been few penalties, although the mechanisms for penalties exist".
"What the Coordinating Council recommends is that the Ministry should verify and use the existing penalty mechanisms", he added.
The fact that some of the failing contractors are Mozambican rather than foreign companies, and it has been thought necessary to protect and support them has led to the failure to apply penalty clauses, explained Zacarias.
He further added that, for these reasons, even the obligation to deposit a guarantee has been set aside.
"We feel that there is a need to support national contractors to allow them to grow so that we can end our dependence on foreign contractors, but our fellow countrymen do not always help us", said Zacarias.
He added that, from now on, a list will be drawn up of contractors who fail to meet the deadlines for public works, and in case of a repeated offence, measures will be taken, which include heavy fines and the cancellation of the licence.
The meeting recommended that the National Road Administration (ANE) oblige the contractor who is rehabilitating the Namacurra/Ligonha river stretch of the main north-south highway, in the central province of Zambezia, to complete the work, that is months behind schedule. The meeting gave the contractor until December to complete the work.
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