adminMartin Kadzere, Senior Business Reporter
MOTA Engil (Zimbabwe) is now eyeing a bigger role in infrastructure and mining projects in the country, about four years after the company opened office in Harare.
The Zimbabwean division is a subsidiary of Mota Engil South Africa, which is owned by Mota Engil (Portugal). Managing director Mr Blacke Mhatira said the company has technical and financial capacity to execute infrastructure and mining projects in Zimbabwe. Last year, Hwange Colliery Company awarded a mining contract to Mota Engil worth $260 million and it is expected to commence operations soon.
“There is potential and there are several areas we can work with Zimbabwe on,” said Mr Mhatiwa in an interview.
Zimbabwe is struggling to fund the country’s $18 billion infrastructure backlog and has identified Public Private Partnerships as a sustainable option to fund the projects.
The sustained deterioration in the quality of infrastructure assets stemmed from very inadequate levels of public expenditures for routine and periodic maintenance of the infrastructure networks, especially in power, water and sanitation, and transport, according to a report prepared by the African Development Bank.
As such, for the Zimbabwean economy to register growth in a manner that is both competitive and effective there is need for the country to undertake work in critical areas such as the development of a robust, elaborate and resilient infrastructure.
Under the Zim-Asset, the Government came up with an infrastructure cluster focused on the rehabilitation of infrastructural assets and the recovery of utility services.
These services relate to water and sanitation, public amenities, information communication technology, energy and power supply and well as transport (road, rail, marine and air).
Some of the projects being undertaken by Mota Engil SA include the construction of part of the railway line from Tete Province running through Malawi to the Nakala Corridor.
The company is working on a 141 kilometer section in Malawi. Recently, the company won a contract amounting to $3,5 billion to construct 580 km railway line and a deep water port in Cameroon. Under the contract, the company will build a 510 km rail line from a mine in Mbalam, to the terminal in lolabe on the western coast of the country and a 70 km side line to the mine in Nabeba in the Republic of Congo.
Mota Engil will also build a deep water port terminal for Chinamax ships and shipyards.
The contract falls within the Mbalam-Nabeba Iron Ore Mining Project (one of the major infrastructure projects both at regional and country level). The project sits in Mbalam, about 485 km east of the coastal town of Kribi in Cameroon and extends to Nabela in the Republic of Congo. All conditions precedent should be met until mid-2015 of which the construction works will start and run for approximately 42 months.
But starting now and until 2015, project design and preliminary works will be executed.
“This award, whose financing structure will be coordinated by Standard Bank, shows how capable the group is to operate and develop business in African continent, to poise itself as solutions provider, and therefore playing an active role in the integrated development of the entire Sub-Saharan region,” said Mota Engil in a statement.
Online Reporter