Maputo — Local businessmen, in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, claim that they are being excluded from the rebuilding of infrastructures in the districts plagued by terrorism since 2017.

According to Mamudo Irache, chairperson of the Cabo Delgado Business Council, cited in Tuesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Notícias', the claim comes at a time when many business people in this province were expecting to recover economically, after suffering heavy losses during the terrorist raids.

"They informed us about the launch of public tenders and we have been participating. But, strangely, no company from Cabo Delgado has won, and worse still, they won't even tell us why. Even for the rehabilitation of restrooms, they are contracting companies from outside Cabo Delgado', Irache said.

The Cabo Delgado businesses, he added, are beginning to believe that the agencies involved have an agenda to harm them.

"They should not talk about lack of capacity, above all in civil engineering', he said. "It doesn't make sense, since our engineering companies always used to play a notable role in major State construction work in the province.'

Do Irache believes that the requirements demanded by international agencies are prohibitive, especially for companies that are recovering from the crisis.

"There was a need to certify the companies and we carried out work that allowed eleven local companies to participate in the tenders, but none of these companies has never won the tender', he explained.