The CIF Automobile Assembly Unit, the CIF CEMENT Cement Factory and the CIF Lowenda Beer Factory are the units belonging to CIF Angola that were privatized via electronic auction, in a process that ended on Tuesday and was conducted by the State Asset and Participation Management Institute (IGAPE).
The aforementioned assets were recovered by the State as part of the anti-corruption process, at a time when a trial is underway in the Supreme Court (TS) in which CIF Angola is one of the accused, along with Angolan generals Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior "Kopelipa" and Leopoldino do Nascimento "Dino".
IGAPE, in a statement consulted this Wednesday by Lusa, states that the CIF Automobile Assembly Unit was auctioned on Tuesday in a bid that reached 10.3 billion kwanzas, with the only bidder being the business group OPAIA, S.A.
For the CIF CEMENT Cement Factory the bid value reached 180 billion kwanzas. In this competition, the Griner/Ciment/Mercons consortium was the first placed, the second placed was the H&S/Yupeng consortium, the third placed was Moçambique Dugongo Cimentos, S.A and the fourth was Huaxin Cement Co., Ltd.
At least 29.1 billion kwanzas was the highest bid reached in the auction of the CIF Lowenda Beer Factory. Rushan Shuguang Beer Ltd came first in the competition, followed by Unique Beverages.
According to IGAPE, the aforementioned bids follow their legal procedures, and the preliminary hearing, final auction report, notification of the award decision to the winning bidder, provision of security, acceptance of the draft contract and execution of the contract comprise the subsequent stages.
The TS suspended again on Tuesday the trial session of generals Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior "Kopelipa" and Leopoldino do Nascimento "Dino", due to the absence of a representative of the defendant CIF Angola.
The trial, in which lawyer Fernando Gomes dos Santos, Yiu Haiming, and the companies CIF, Plansmart International Limited and Utter Right International Limited are also defendants, was resumed after an interruption of almost a month, but the judge of the collective, Anabela Valente, chose to suspend the sessions again due to doubts about the current majority shareholder of CIF Angola.
The Public Prosecutor's Office agreed with the defense's arguments that it would be "more prudent and wise" to request more information from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the trustee of the assets, and from IGAPE, responsible for the CIF group's sales, given the fact that the corporate interests were handed over to the State.
The trial, which began on March 10 of this year, is in its 6th session, still in the preliminary issues discussion phase. The next session was scheduled for May 13th.
