印刷Business News

The Mozambican Association of Printing Industries (AIGM) wants the Ministry of Education to grant it priority in the production of school text books, through favorable public tenders focused at the existing capacities in the country, instead of privileging foreign companies.

According to the AIGM chairperson, Belmaro Quive, cited in Friday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Notícias”, the national tax scenario has been prioritizing foreign companies, leaving the national printing industry behind.

In February, the government announced that it will exercise control over the content of textbooks to avoid any repetition of the 2022 scandal when books printed in Portugal were found to contain gross geographical and even mathematical errors.

Quive says that the recent international tender launched for the 2024 schoolbook production violates previous promises, which claimed to create a platform focused on prioritizing Mozambican companies.

“Calling all the companies in the world to express their interest in book production is the same as drastically reducing the chances of Mozambican printers to win the tender”, said Quive.

Quive accuses the Education Ministry of breaking its promises, since “it was envisaged that the tender would be restricted to national companies, but suddenly an international tender was announced.”

“The international companies have more chances of winning the tender, which means that the books will continuously be produced abroad, in the next five years”, he added.

Each year, the source said, the government prints 20 million books. “If there was an agreement with the national companies, we could design a measure to allow the printing in Mozambique of all or some of the books in the medium and long term”, claimed Quive.

The AIGM has existed since 1999 and it consists of 22 printing companies.

Source: https://clubofmozambique.com/news/mozambican-printing-industry-wants-to-be-prioritised-in-schoolbook-production-241077/