Tiko case: when the state lays down the law

The lawyers speak out on exactions and depredations undergone by the Tiko group. According to Me Razafimananatsoa, the final goal is to carry the case before the Madagascan and international justice. There are foreign interests within the Tiko group, swiss particularly, we lodge a complain and require damages for the arson and depredations but also for what is still being inflicted on the corporation « , she said.  

The prejudice linked to depredations and arsons during the orange revolution, and the requisition by the HAT, amount to about 150 billions of ariary. The government of transition continues to exploit the factory and its stocks in total impunity. This disguised nationalization is considered as a theft by the group’s lawyers.  

Tiko, the iconic corporation, the number one target during the Coup process. President Ravalomanana and incidentally the TIM party had to be cut off from their supplies. After the depredations and the havocs, the « revolutionaries » then changed their mind. Tiko had to become the milking cow of a transitional regime forced to run with the only interior fat, due to a lack of foreign financial helps. 

In a shock airing, Tiko group has been accused of fiscal  and custom debts and ordered to pay nearby 200 billions of ariary, the strict necessary for the HAT to be   » comfortable « , according to its finance minister. It is nearly as much as the injected investments in what used to be the biggest industrial group of Madagascar. Since then, goods, factories, raw materials and even the employees of the Tiko Group are requisitioned by force to feed the transition.  

The case has been sent to the court. A first decision has been returned, the one to unblock the personal accounts of Marc Ravalomanana, the founder as well as those of his wife Lalao was logical. Instead of a setback, the HAT’s finance ministry saw a victory there, affirming that the court had only followed the diagram planned by the government of transition: unblock the accounts in question to let the government pump at will as for a debts repay.  

New authorities don’t dip into banks only. The Tiko’s lawyers confirmed that rice of 2500 ariary the kilogram and oil of 2500 ariary the litre, used by the HAT to fuel its propaganda, belonged altogether to the group. They said that they hold accounts of 25 billions ariary owed to the state by Tiko. A payment roadmap has already been established since last year.  

For Tiko’s defenders, the 35000 tons of wheat and 35000 tons of rice requisitioned by the HAT can largely cover the 25 billions of ariary of debts. In clear, they estimate that Tiko doesn’t owe anything anymore at the state. The HAT tries to make the enterprise repay all the received financial advantages since several years. Tiko actually benefited from tax and customs reductions on behalf of the struggle against the inflation, maintaining to the lowest the prices for commodities. The question becomes political since the exoneration is… legal.