High-level corruption allegations have arisen over the award of the Lumwana – Kambimba Public Private Partnership – PPP deal to the well-known Sandstone Consortium.
A media investigation by the Zambian Business Times – ZBT following the allegations has revealed that the consortium promoters have no known financial or technical capacity to undertake a project of such magnitude.
It is also not clear if they were the only bidder as sources at the Road Development Agency – RDA say its details seem to be very sensitive and secretive even internally.
ZBT contacted the one-man Sandstone Consortium Representative during the signing ceremony held at Solwezi by Minister of Infrastructure Charles Milupi, Marcus Ascort who only promised to get back but later could not be reached as his phone went unanswered.
Ascort had been part of the promoters of the GED Africa Consortium that promoted the recently launched Mwenda – Kasomeno Road and auxiliary infrastructure deal, which a source told ZBT that it took long partly due to this same structure were a company without capacity simply gets a high-value contract and later sells it at a profit to qualifying partners.
The corruption allegations are that the PPP deal was given to Sandstone Consortium at a huge margin, which they would then cash in after finding and selling the contract or company equity to actual companies that have the financial and technical capabilities to undertake the project.
In an actual sense, this involves public officials knowingly giving out a large contract value to a company with no capacity and track record for purposes of sharing the discount, an act of alleged corruption and abuse of office.
This also means that the public pays more for these projects. ZBT has since reached out to the Road Development Agency – RDA to get the full details for the deal to have it independently reviewed over allegations that it has been issued at a steep discount.
Most such deal documents are not made publicly available for fear that independent experts would be able to call the bluff