Politics & Government

State Rep. Ellinger Part of Panel Tasked With Examining Messy Mamtek Deal

The newly formed Missouri House Committee on Government Oversight and Accountability, is responsible for investigating waste, fraud and abuse in state government.

State Representative Rory Ellinger of University City is part of a House Committee that is examining the state's involvement with Mamtek, a Chinese company that had planned to build an artificial sweetener plant in Moberly, Missouri.

The deal fell through and work has stopped on the factory, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch. The newly formed, Committee on Government Oversight and Accountability, is responsible for investigating waste, fraud and abuse in state government.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that Moberly, Missouri, borrowed nearly $40 million to build and equip the plant; the state promised $17.6 million in tax credits and other incentives. The deal fell apart in early September after Mamtek missed a bond payment.

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“We should ensure the legal contracts are protecting the taxpayers
while investing into the company who expects to be creating jobs,”
said Ellinger in a news release. “For Mamtek and other job creating programs, we must seriously explore a time limit that corporations have to create new
jobs after collecting their tax credits. It should not be open ended
agreements.”

The Mamtek deal was expected to create hundred of jobs in Moberly, according to the Moberly Monitor-Index.

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