The government of Tanzania says it has begun legal action to recover millions of dollars it says a British contractor received for building a road in a remote area, but who then disappeared having done no work.
Chief executive of the Tanzania Roads Agency Patrick Mfugale told reporters that the UK company STRADA International was hired in 2013 to build the 26-km road from Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) to the gem mines of Mirerani, but that the company just disappeared with more than 22 billion Tanzania shillings – around $9.8m at today’s exchange rate.
Strada International Building & Civil Engineers Ltd was incorporated in February 2011 with an address in Middlesex, England.
An annual return filed in 2012 lists four directors, three of them British and one, a Elimboto Sinda Isingo, a Tanzanian national with a service address in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
A 2013 accounts for a dormant company said Strada had just £100 in the bank that year, and the same in 2012.
In 2015 his agency hired a Chinese contractor, China Henan International Cooperation Group, which built the road at a cost of 32.2 billion shillings ($14.3m), supervised by LEA International Engineering of Canada, and in association with a local firm DOCH Tanzania.
