Maputo — Mozambique's Attorney-General, Augusto Paulino, has called on prosecutors to pay greater attention to contracts for state building works which are frequently won by corrupt means.

Speaking at a meeting in the southern province of Gaza, where he is on a working visit, Paulino said that there has not been enough courage shown by the relevant institutions or individuals to denounce the payment of bribes which ensure that contracts are won by particular companies.

The bribes wreck the whole principle of public tendering, and damage the interests of the public treasury.

Cited in Wednesdays issue of the Maputo dally "Noticias", Paulino said that many public tenders become completely illegal, because the juries that select the winning bid are bought. They demand large sums of money from companies who are then awarded the contract, but do not have the capacity to do the job properly.

Once the company has paid the bribe, said Paulino, the money is shared out between the members of the jury - the very people who ought to ensure that the tender is clean and transparent.

As a result some of those who win tenders produce work of poor quality, and in some cases abandon the job before completing it.

"Some contractors, who win these tenders fraudulently, even say that nobody will do anything to them because they have the situation under control", Paulino said. "That is because those who were in charge of the tenders received money from the companies, and are thus in no position to punish them when the work is badly done or unfinished".

Prosecutors, he continued, thus had every interest in looking into these tenders, to see whether they obeyed the rules and whether the winners were selected fairly and cleanly. If bribery was suspected, "we have to hold the individuals concerned responsible", he insisted.

The task of public servants, he added, was not to find obscure ways to get rich quick, but to serve the citizens.