The São Toméan government guaranteed Thursday December 28 that the Port of São Tomé will remain in the legal sphere of the State, with the assistance of international experts, denying the privatization or concession to the French company África Global Logistic, which is being contested by the workers.
In a press release, the office of the Minister of Infrastructure, Adelino Cardoso, assures that the contract with Africa Global Logistic (AGL) “is in no way a privatization or concession”, but rather an “operational management agreement”.
The Ministry of Infrastructure stresses that “the port will always remain in the legal sphere of the São Toméan state” and “will be managed by a national board and controlled by the state”, but will have the “technical and operational assistance of a team of competent and experienced international experts in port management”.
The statement also says that the operational management agreement was signed with Africa Global Logistic, a subsidiary of the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), “a world leader in container transportation and logistics” in search of “solutions to the problems that are blatantly and rampantly afflicting” the population and “negatively impacting the country’s economy”.
The Ministry states that São Tomé’s public companies “are in a clear situation of technical and financial bankruptcy”, with large debts to suppliers and non-compliance with tax obligations, as well as the inability to acquire equipment and goods and services to guarantee their operations.
In the particular case of Enaport, the Ministry of Infrastructure points out that the company “has a total debt of more than 55 million dobras”, equivalent to more than two million euros.
The “public-private partnership agreement” that the officials are contesting, dates from December 20 and is between the government, represented by the Minister for Infrastructure, Natural Resources and the Environment, Adelino Cardoso, the director of Enaport, Hamilton de Sousa, and the representative of the company Africa Global Logistics (AGL) Pierre-François Pioriou.