As alegadas práticas corruptas da Mota -Engil no Malawi

Lindo, lindo! A ser verdade o que se segue, o que tem a dizer sobre o assunto a empresa onde pontifica o ex-governante socialista Jorge Coelho? É que também existem rabos de palha em Angola que a seu tempo divulgaremos.

Temos aqui um excelente exemplo de diplomacia económica tão ao gosto do Martinho com a Cruz às Costas. Será assim que as coisas devem ser feitas?

Ora bem, do  NYASA TIMES jornal on-line do Malawi, divulgamos na íntegra um artigo publicado em 23 de Junho ultimo.

Mota -Engil Malawi corrupt practices exposed

Mota-Engil (mw) a  leading engineering company has been involved in questionable and unethical practices in its dealings with some suppliers who among them are some government officials including deputy minister of Information Tarcizio Gowelo and wife  to the Roads Authority chief executive a Mrs. Kondwani Kulemeka.

Mota-Engil has also managed to get government crazy with lots of gifts to the government machinery including President Bingu wa Mutharika resulting in grabbing almost all construction projects.

Gowelo: Implicated

The company has further flexed the muscles of the powerful Road Traffic Directorate to issue certificate of fitness for its vehicles without inspection by giving money to some officials at the directorate.

For example, evidence shows some Mota have been involved in altering invoices of clients to include VAT despite such companies not being qualified for that tax.

“A supplier by the name of Ku+Ku, a company belonging to a Mrs. Kulemeka, wife of Roads Authority chief executive officer Paul Kulemeka, issued the invoice: Date:19/01/2009 REF :133 COST: MK 7,286,400” reads one document.

“Upon receipt of the above invoice, the Portuguese in the administration department by the name of Victor Andrade, altered the invoice so as to include vat charge as  Date: 19/01/2009 REF:133 COST:MK7,286,400 VAT:MK1,202,256.”

The total figure reached MK8, 488,656 and the K1, 202,256 was a cooked figure to act as a kickback.

A source at Mota-Engil said while doing that Victor Andrade knew for sure that the company, ku+ku, was not supposed to charge vat since it had not been registered for vat by then.

The source said the reason behind the change of the invoice was of course to please the supplier so that upon withholding tax deduction, the supplier would not suffer much reduction in the net pay bearing in mind that she would not have to remit the Vat. So the Vat was used to cushion the withholding tax effect.

As per normal practice, each Vat return is supposed to have four largest invoices for that particular month listed at the back of the return so as to help Malawi Revenue Authority in their audit duties.

But Andrade was discovered. It did not go down well with him when the then senior accountant, Happy Mughogho discovered that Andrade had included the supplier -ku+ku as one of the largest for the month and that it was a special case.

Through Malawi Revenue Authority routine audits, Mrs Kulemeka was called to Mota-Engil offices to explain why she had not remitted the vat she was purportedly supposed to pay.

Mrs Kulemeka was left at the mercy of MRA officials by Andrade –the mastermind of the altered invoice.

Mota Engil effectively created a deductable tax asset of the equivalent amount in a dubious manner. Thus Mota Engil acquired a dubious tax asset. Effectively both Mota Engil and ku+ku benefitted.

Records also show that deputy minister of Information and Civic Education Tarcizio Gowelo is implicated in Mota dealings.

“A payment was to be paid and as per the normal practice, all suppliers without withholding tax exemption certificates were supposed to be deducted withholding tax. However, the financial controller, Francisco Couto demanded that Hon Gowelo should not suffer the deduction even when he had no such certificate.”

The payment was done on cheque number-9626 dated 7th April, 2010.

The then senior accountant, Happy Mughohgo again queried his bosses about such unethical practices.

Former  managing director, Texeira and the finance team led by a Rui Caetano told Mughogho to shut up and warned him to stop acting as if he was working for MRA.—(Reporting by Judith Moya, Nyasa Times)