Local business owners in Mozambique's northern Cabo Delgado province say they are being excluded from rebuilding infrastructure in districts ravaged by terrorism since 2017.

According to Mamudo Irache, president of the Business Council of Cabo Delgado, quoted by the newspaper Notícias and citing AIM, the complaint comes at a time when many businessmen of this province hoped for economic recovery, after having suffered heavy losses during the terrorist attacks.

They informed us about the launching of the public tenders and we have participated. But, strangely, no company from Cabo Delgado has won and, even worse, they don't even tell us why. Even for the rehabilitation of the bathrooms they are hiring companies from outside Cabo Delgado? said Irache.

According to businessmen in Cabo Delgado, they are partly beginning to believe that the agencies involved have an agenda to harm them.

?they shouldn't talk about a lack of capacity, especially in construction,? he said. ?it doesn't make sense, because our engineering companies have always played a prominent role in major state works 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 ever won the tender? he explained.