Mozambique’s Zambezi Valley Development Agency has awarded a $5.5 million to a rural consultancy firm named HUB – Assistência Técnica e Formação to implement the APROSAN project, a water, food security and nutrition, and markets in the central Zambezi Valley, according to an advertisement placed in Monday’s edition of the Maputo daily ‘Notícias’.
HUB – Assistência Técnica e Formação was established in 2018 to carry out a technological transfer project in the Zambezi Valley.
Comment
This is not the only award or announcement of a public tender involving huge sums of money. About three weeks ago, there was a public uproar following the announcement by the Ministry of Transport and Communications that it had awarded a $3 million contract to a consortium of two companies to do a feasibility study for a Bus Rapid Transit urban mobility project.
As President Filipe Nyusi’s two terms of office come to an end, there has been a remarked increase of public tenders being awarded directly in the sectors of agriculture and rural development, transport and communications, and municipalities – compare the spending spree with the late payment of civil servants’ salaries.
The government is struggling to pay salaries to civil servants, including critical sectors like the army and the police, with economists warning that the country might be heading towards a liquidity crisis. Meanwhile, government is involved in a tug-of-war with doctors, who are currently on strike over poor working conditions and salaries.
Following a relatively balanced first term, Nyusi seems to be visibly bewildered and unsure of the direction the country should take. And it is amid this uncertainty and lack of direction that the looting of the state is taking place.
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