Who is in charge of the millionaire school supplies in Mozambique?

O Center for Public Integrity (CIP) published a report where, among others, it reveals the names of the companies, international and national, market leaders in the millionaire business of free distribution of school material in Mozambique. The document also indicates the specific amounts that each of them collected from each tender launched by the Ministry of Education and Human Development (MINEDH).

The business of providing free school supplies for Mozambican elementary school circulates, between publishers and printers, more than 1.4 billion meticais (23 million dollars at the current exchange rate - USD 1=64.46 Mzn). The cooperation partners channel the amount to the Education Sector Support Fund (FASE), which is responsible for management. For almost two decades, from 2003 to 2022, every year 30% of the actual beneficiaries are left without access to school material.

According to CIP, this time seems not to have been enough for national printers to lead the manual printing business, due to lack of capital and the absence of a strong and competitive publishing and printing industry that could meet the demand.

The "bounty" for supplying schoolbooks is made through international public tenders, says the CIP. The winning companies have been from Portugal and England - the colossal ones -, and from India, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia and Spain. "The books are produced, edited and printed, outside the country."

"[The] large international companies find no competition in the local market, in terms of quality or price, with few Mozambican publishers having won MINEDH tenders to supply textbooks," it reads.

CIP says that the textbook business in Mozambique is led by three groups of companies.

The first comprises Plural Editores, of the Porto Editora group, Texto Editora, of the Leya group, and Pearson/Longman, which "[for several years] has controlled a large part of the schoolbook market, owning publishing rights to several book titles in Mozambique, including secondary school textbooks."

For the supply of 4th grade books alone, in 2019, Porto Editora invoiced just over 147 million meticais (two million euros - EUR 1 = 73.63) and Texto Editora collected close to 49 million meticais (670 thousand euros).

These are companies that participate in several other public tenders launched by MINEDH for editing and printing elementary school textbooks, according to our source.

The second group consists mostly of Asian companies (India and Vietnam), which reprint elementary school materials.

In 2016 alone, India's Seshaasai Business Forms Pvt Ltd, billed 83.7 million meticais (1.3 million US dollars) from two tenders awarded by MINEDH.

"Likewise Burda Druck Pvt, Ltd, owned by German giant Hubert Burda Media, present in countries like Germany and France, won 2 tenders budgeted at 1 million US dollars, equivalent to 64.46 million meticais," CIP reveals.

Among them is also the Indian Lovely Offset Printers Pvt Ltd, which in the same year invoiced about nine million meticais (US$140,000) with MINEDH contracts.

The Mozambican companies appear in the third group. They take the cake concerning the production of textbooks in local languages, as part of bilingual education. There are companies such as Alcance Editora and some printing companies, including BDQ and Académica, invoicing in the weaker currency, the Metical.

As a whole, these Mozambican companies, which have little experience in the area, are less expressive, "having the lowest market share in MINEDH's public tenders for both editing and reprinting the manuals.

"BDQ, Impressão e Gráfica, Limitada made 56.2 million meticais with the award of 3 of the 4 lots of a MINEDH tender for the printing of 1st and 2nd grade manuals. Alcance Editores, Limitada earned 27.3 million meticais on a contract to produce 1st and 2nd grade manuals for bilingual education. And finally, Académica, Limitada raised 18 million Meticais with the award of 1 of four lots of the MINEDH tender for the printing of 1st and 2nd grade manuals," details the report.

"For almost two decades there has been no investment in the national publishing and printing industry in such a way that companies in this field could stand up to their international counterparts. The result is visible. National publishers and printers remain in limbo in the lucrative schoolbook business," concludes the analysis.

Despite this, the CIP recalls that public procurement in Mozambique is one of the greatest pits for acts of corruption in the country. In its view, for this service in the education sector, the scenario seems seductive because it involves a lot of money. Hence, it warns for the involvement of civil society in the scrutiny of companies, since the fact that the process is monitored by the World Bank (WB) year guarantees the absence of corruption, in its various forms, as happens in other sub-Saharan African countries assisted by the WB.

Source: CIP

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