Malawi govt questioned for favouring Mota-Engil to ‘level of monopoly’ in road construction
Some social commentators are groping for justification behind Malawi government’s glaring favouring of a Portuguese multinational engineering firm, Mota-Engil, when it is awarding contracts in the road construction projects.
Stanley Onjezani Kenani observes that Mota-Engil is currently enjoying a combined value of K142 billion in road contracts in Malawi.
The second most-favoured company, Zhajoung of China, is engaged in government road projects worth just K15 billion.
Kenani, writing on his Facebook wall, alleges that Zhajoung of China is another company, which is receiving enormous contracts from the authorities at the Capital Hill, Lilongwe.
“All those engineers the Polytechnic has produced since 1965, don’t they have companies that can construct roads? Then we need to question the relevance of our education? For how long shall we be importing these engineering companies, amangwetu?” he asks.
In his comment, the private practice lawyer Ishmael Wadi faults the Malawi government for allegedly promoting Mota-Engil to the level of a monopoly and has in the process killed competition and fair bidding.
Wadi – who served briefly as Director of Public Prosecution under the late Bingu wa Mutharika administration – adds that other companies like Shire Construction Limited, which he argues are equally competent and capable, have been put on the sidelines because they refused to bribe powers-that-be in government.
“Equally, Terrastone, Master Construction have been marginalized. Here I haven’t spoken of Malawi owned companies like Deco (Dini Lungu), Maluza and many others. How do you expect Malawians to excel when they are not being awarded tenders?” he asks.
Another commentator, Jones Mawerenga, doubts if the sidelining of indigenous engineering companies has anything to do with capacity.
Mawerenga thus condemns the Malawi Government for failing to empowering indigenous contractors like South Africa is doing.
“Let us borrow a leaf [from South Africa],” he urges.
Efforts to talk Mota-Engil and the alleged sidelined indigenous contractors proved futile.
Meanwhile, Nyasa Times is making efforts to talk to them in due course to find out how this has affected their business.
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Do you know that the DPP is the only political party that is allowed to use the ship MV Chilembwe, the newest and most modern ship on Lake Malawi? Other parties are not allowed even if they are ready to pay for it. The ship belongs to Malawi Shipping Company, a subsidiary of Mota-engil Malawi.
Piease, Malawians focus on Covid19
Not in politics and campaigns save lives
Before to late.
Merid from Ethiopia
Well, well. Its about time.
Did you know, under the DPP that Mota-Engil had once or twice paid for the salaries of the government? This is a big deal, because, if any individual paid for such, can you imagine how much power you have over the people of the entire country?
Let it be known that there real Mafia in Malawi. Lets pray that the change we have been waiting for shows up in the next month, otherwise Malawi is going to disappear very soon.
May the higher powers bless and help our beautiful nation.
Mota Engil is messing up the Chileka Road, look at roads servicing locations like Nyambadwe, Ndirande, Chirimba hsve been completely destroyed. I feel very angry the way they destroyed the Recently constructed Chirimba Market Rd connecting to Magalsi Chileka road. Also the Maselema Kachere dual highway. The type of road they constructed, but it was during Joyce Bandas reign and some of the wotks were subcontracted to her and her son, so there was no one who could query them as they had the backing of the head of state.
The fact is, No any other contractor want to get the jobs because Mw government is broke and wants things done on PPP where payments will be done upon invoicing.
Mota – Engil is also compromising quality at the expense of dishing out millions to DPP and President himself
Miseu amagumula ndi a MCP
@Bwana
So true, they are like lunatics & embiciles who gets everything from their leadership including kugumula mseu
Muluz i tried awarding contracts to Malawians and our roads became an absolute disaster. Maybe what should be done is to agree with Mota that they should subcontract at least 50% of their contracts to Malawians however, they remain in charge of quality control
It’s because officials at Roads Authority and politicians demanded a big kick back hence compromised works
Go and see Rumphi to Chitipa through Nyika and feel the quality there but it is done by MOTA ENGIL…They are overwhelmed…THEY HAVE TOO MUCH ON THEIR PLATE!!!!
….RUMPHI TO CHITIPA VIA NYIKA ROAD..
Hence subcontracting.
Apa pokha ndichitira umboni, amalawi apatsidwapo ma contract a size yawo koma amatenga dzaka kansewu kakafupi ndipo samanga mwaluso, apa pokha tisanamizanepo, ndinaziona ine
The road from Maselema to Chiradzulu turn -off as you go to Zomba has been under construction for 5 years now, but this section is not over and yet the road is already damaged. Just a km away from Maselema driving towards Limbe Cathedral, the road has more than 10 potholes such that driving is not enjoyable. One wonders what kind of workmanship and capacity Mota Engil has.If Kamazuz wa there he would have terminated their contract and let them go. What is happening is completely bullshit.
Koma amalawi umbuli mmatenda zedi . Do you know the relationship between infrastructure development and the economy of a country? Kkkkkkkkk tamapangani comment zinazo koma naa izi zokha izi mmmm ayi!
All the Tippers on Mota Engil projects belong to DPP top officials. These are the DPP people whose tippers are on Mota Engil projects: George Chaponda, Jappie, Mussa
Is Mota Engil just being given the contracts without work being done?
YES, PROVED….We have a long list of badly done/low quality and incompleted roads all over the country!!
And they are stubborn,
And why them all projects
Ndi amwano
DPP company /udf group 5
Yet the best Road construction company is Strabag,why not giving em contracts ?
Strabag is the best company ever and the one which constructed the limbe highway (Japanese company)
Dpp externalise money and finance themselves thru Mota. They can Neva be left on key road contracts. They r the messengers to deposit foreign accounts. The other sad thing is that Mota even challenge govt officials who recommend following of procedures. They have always been untouchable since dpp came to reign.
Foseki
They are using these companies even though they do a poor and shit job is because they get a Kickback in simple language katangale DPP tipex government. Malawians you will agree with. E that the Mzuzu to Nkhata Bay Road is of good standard and it was built by Germany company. Apa they failed to corrupt the company and Mbava za DPP could not give them more contracts.
That’s the more reason we need to kick this stinking government out of power.
Someone fault me here when I mention that current speaker of parliament, Catherine Gotani Hara, alluded to a similar issue concerning the economy being in the hands of a few Malawians of Indian descent.
People were up in arms castigating her on her comments. Truth be told, everyone exactly understood what she meant, albeit that she, probably, may not have properly articulated it or people may deliberately have chosen to misunderstand her. I, am unfortunately, not based in Malawi at the moment, so what I got was through the different online sources. But I don’t recall anywhere (in her quoted speech) where she said Indians or any other foreign business people must be chased out of the country (as some comments seemed to have been alluding to giving examples of Idi Amin Dada in Uganda).
Now, if we were to look at the above article objectively I think what the different observers are trying to say is that in an economy like ours where the majority of major infrastructure projects are funded by government, it would really be beneficial that contracts be shared in a manner that local companies benefit as well. This is not to say that local companies must be handed contracts on a silver platter, but they must also be considered based on their ability to deliver. And it has been rightly mentioned, delivery capacity is not an issue with local companies, but it seems something is at play when these contracts are dished out. Bribery has been mentioned, but I will not dwell on that as it does not add any value to what I am trying to get at.
On the other hand, maybe it should be enforced as a rule that when a major international corporate like Mota-Engil gets a huge infrastructure project, they should perhaps sub-contract a slice to a local construction company or two. This, of course, could be done through a rigorous selection process. Work done by the chosen local company(ies) to be only signed off based on the same quality as carried out by say Mota-Engil itself (or what-ever the international contractor is). After all, it’s Mota-Engil’s contract with government anyway, so any shoddy work will reflect badly on their portfolio.
This, in my humble opinion, will not only create our own local construction industry behemoths through skills transfer, but it will as well keep our money in the country as opposed to it leaving for offshore accounts. We in, the long run, can in turn then employ our own local people as opposed to some of these foreign companies that are usually known to bring their own labour force. We indeed, do have a lot of well-qualified people in most sectors of the economy but their skills are not fully utilised because we lack industries in which to apply those skills.
I am not a supporter of any political party or individual presidential contestants but sometimes it makes sense when people like Saulos Chilima mention creating a million jobs, cheaper fertilizer for our farmers. In my mind, some of these goals are achievable. Maybe not in one year as touted by Chilima, but I think with well-focused plans with people in positions of leadership making good decisions that would benefit the country, the economy and it’s people, we can gradually move forward to a better Malawi.
We need visionaries (of course with a reasonable dose of caution and skeptism) but if we keep shooting down as ridiculous, mad, unattainable every idea or dream expressed by some people in certain quarters because we hate them because of their tribe, region of origin, political party or plain sarcasm, we will remain where we are for years to come. Any big achievement in any sector started with an idea, a dream and a few people that believed in that dream.
Just thinking aloud..
I agree with subcontracting because fellow Malawians failed us during Muluzis time.
This attitude of marginalising Malawians by the DPP led government is widespread. DPP do not give a toss about promoting Malawians.
Look at the way they are awarding transportation businesses to foreigners. DPP does not care about Malawians.
Sorry, Malawian businesses, you are on your own. DPP does not care unfortunately.
Corruption has indeed reached a level that those in government have become intoxicated with. Shire Constr have a good reputation and experience. Mota-Engil started bribing Bingu and are now bribing his brother
Indeed we have to question the graduates which poly produced .Koma dyera basi Alipo ambiri FARGO, TERRASTONE, PMB CONSTRUCTION
You’re forgetting JB was also part of this Mota Engil scandal . As mentioned by another comment that the maselema to chiradzulu turn off road contract is not good enough for use was given out in JB’s short tainted cash gate tenure.