Africa-Press – Cape verde. Macau Legend Development (MLD) today accused the Cape Verdean government of an “offensive act” for having terminated, without warning, contracts and concessions for the gaming and tourism development planned for the capital, Praia, which was never completed.
The multi-million euro development, announced ten years ago, left part of the city’s waterfront blocked off, blocking what was previously Praia da Gamboa, with an eight-storey hotel-casino that remains empty.
The government says it acted to resolve the situation, but the company disputes this.
“These administrative acts of termination of contracts and reversion of assets to the State were decreed without Macau Legend Development (MLD) having been previously notified of any decision in the ongoing administrative procedure”, reads a statement published by the company in the weekly newspaper Expresso das Ilhas.
“MLD will immediately use the legal means at its disposal to defend its rights and trusts that, until the reasons relating to these contracts are settled, the State of Cape Verde will not commit any further acts that offend its rights as an investor,” it added.
As part of the administrative process, the developer says that it has kept the Government informed of “negotiations with interested investors” in the project, requesting “the definition of the essential elements” to protect “the public interests of Cape Verde.”
The company complains that the Government ignored its requests and only notified it of the decision to extinguish everything and revert the assets, by email, one day after the publication in the Official Gazette.
MLD says that it has always paid the licenses owed to the city council and government entities, adding that the last payment for the renewal of the gaming licenses was made on 18 November, the day the end of the contracts and reversal were published, MLD said.
The Cape Verdean Council of Ministers justified the termination of the contracts by reversing the hotel-casino and other unfinished projects, saying that “MLD has flagrantly and repeatedly violated its obligations”, failing to meet deadlines, which have been revised successively since the first announcement of the investment.
The government also said that it had given the company “every opportunity” to resume the works, without accepting the justification that the current situation is due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the end of November, MLD announced to the Hong Kong stock exchange that the project in Cape Verde was worth 47 million Hong Kong dollars (5.76 million euros), far from the 250 million euros announced by businessman David Chow and Cape Verdean authorities in 2015.
For More News And Analysis About Cape verde Follow Africa-Press
