CEOAFRICA.com received a report from Maputo, the capital of Mozambique that a building company which won the contract to build a prison in Chiure district, Cabo Delgado Province, has abandoned the job after taken a huge sum of $435,000 from the government.

The contract, according to sources, was awarded to Hector Construcoes, based in Maputo, in 2010. It supposes to build a new prison that would accommodate 300 inmates so as to reduce usual congestion of prisoners at the district. Three years after, what the company succeeded in building was just walls with inferior materials.

Furthermore, it was gathered that the company not only abandon the work, it also abandoned its workers, 39 of which have gone without their wages for the last 15 months, as others have protested to local authorities demanding payment.

When the Deputy Justice Minister Alberto Nkutumula visited the prison, he was angered at what he saw and promised that government would do all within its power to track down the owner of Hector Construcoes and hold him accountable for his acts.

“13 million out of the 14 meticais necessary for this job were paid, so only a million meticais was left to be disbursed. It’s impossible to believe that this money was used to build what we have seen.

“This is unacceptable. This is complete failure to comply with the contract. We will do all we can to find this contractor, even if he is in South Africa”, Nkutukula said.