The Prime Minister of São Tomé on Wednesday January 10 denied the annulment of the concession contract for port services to the French company Africa Global Logist, denying the workers’ union, but said that the agreement is under review and “does not exist legally”.
Patrice Trovoada said that the contract “has shortcomings that need to be clarified” and errors that the government is analyzing.
According to the head of government, this was “exactly what” he told the workers’ union of the National Port Administration Company (Enaport) at their meeting last week.
The Prime Minister added that as long as the contract has not been amended, revised, in perfect agreement and openness with Africa Global Logist (AGL), “which also wants to clarify a few things”, and as long as the contract “has not gone to the Court of Auditors for approval, legally this contract does not exist”.
Patrice Trovoada’s clarification was made during a press conference, when asked about the statements made by the president of the Enaport workers’ union, Hermes Carvalho, who said he had been informed by the prime minister, after a meeting, that the government had annulled the operational management contract for this infrastructure signed with AGL because there were some “clauses that were not known to them”.
“I haven’t annulled it, it’s not annulled. It will be worked on […] it will be improved, clarified,” the Prime Minister stressed. Patrice Trovoada assured that the former Minister of Infrastructure, Adelino Cardoso, who resigned last week after controversies over the contract, “had the go-ahead to sign this agreement within the framework of a term of reference that needed to be obtained”, but “in the term of reference something got away”.
The text of the agreement states that the President of the Republic, Carlos Vila Nova, the Prime Minister, Patrice Trovoada, and Enaport “recognize the need to modernize and manage the port and have identified the operator, the French company AGL, as the best candidate to carry out the project”.