At issue, according to the complaint filed with the Attorney General's Office, to which Lusa had access, is the alleged overbilling of the Currency Museum, “a simple structure, with an underground floor”, which cost 64.5 million dollars, six times the initial value.
The complaint filed by the activist and director of the research portal Maka Angola states that in just two years the cost of the museum went from just over 10 million dollars to 64.5 million dollars.
The contract for the architectural project, signed in July 2012 by Lima Massano, then governor of the National Bank of Angola (BNA), was developed by FCL.AO-Arquitectos Associados, owned by brothers Alexandre and António Falcão Costa Lopes, who charged 460 thousand dollars in fees, 4.5 percent of the estimated value of the work (10 million and 195 thousand dollars), whose gross construction area was initially 2,615 square meters, says the document.
The construction contract was awarded to the consortium formed by the companies Griner, Somague and Tecnasol, on April 11, 2013, for a value of 14.4 million dollars for “excavation, peripheral containment and foundations”, and the project was subsequently modified , with an increase in gross area to 4,350 square meters, which caused the value to soar to 28 million dollars, and forced the payment to FCL.AO to be readjusted to 940 thousand dollars, he adds.
On April 14, 2014, Lima Massano signed a new contract with Griner and Somague for the execution of the structure and finishing works in the amount of US$ 13.6 million and on November 4, 2014 he signed a contract for the “ architecture and finishes” worth US$ 16.7 million.
According to the document, the contract for the fifth phase, worth 4.6 million dollars, has already been signed by the new governor of the BNA José Pedro de Morais (appointed on the day Massano was dismissed) with Griner/Somague, for “change, special structures and installations", dated May 2015, although the work was completed in February of that same year.
“In total, the work on the small, underground museum already exceeded R$64.5 million,” writes Rafael Marques, who also lists three contracts with the company ComCultura, for equipping the museum, worth R$8.8 million.
“The facts are clear. There are strong indications of overpricing, which will be up to the authorities to investigate,” the activist points out, questioning “how it is possible to increase a cost sixfold in two years.”
For Rafael Marques, the facts he describes “strongly indicate the practice of crimes of embezzlement, influence peddling, money laundering and tax fraud”, considering that they must be “properly investigated”.
