The municipality of Maputo announced yesterday, Tuesday (02), that all the officials involved in the irregular process that culminated in the painting of the Maputo mayor's escort car will be duly held accountable.

According to the municipal secretary of the city of Maputo, Euclides Rangel, who was speaking at a press conference to clarify the contours of the controversy over the painting of the car used to escort the mayor of Maputo, Razaque Manhique, which culminated in the cancellation of the tender, the city council was not aware of all these actions, which is why the news alerted the city council to the need to do a better job, as there were clear indications that costs had been extrapolated.

The public tender for the painting of the vehicle in question, which ended up costing 290,232 meticais, with the work being awarded by direct award to the company Karam Car LDA, located on Rua da Beira in Maputo, was published in Jornal Notícias on June 13.

However, the tender generated popular outrage because of the high cost. In fact, the tender only served to formalize the work because the amount was paid in February of this year.

Therefore, when he became aware of the irregularity, the mayor immediately ordered the tender to be cancelled and instructed the municipal inspectorate to investigate the whole process with the organic unit that launched the tender, in this case the municipal police command.

"When the public tender was cancelled, it was then that it was realized that it was actually just formalizing a process that had already been carried out, so everyone involved will be held accountable," said Rangel, quoted by AIM.

Following an inspection by the City Council, it was first detected that the object of the tender was not precise, because the description of the service performed included other trappings that were not included in the public tender notice.

In addition, there was an attempt to regularize acts that had already taken place and, as a result, "administrative actions are continuing against the people who were involved in this process so that this situation can be corrected".

As a way of preventing similar cases from occurring in the future, the municipality decided to unify the Procurement Management Units (UGEA).

(Photo DR)