A Missouri Senate committee has requested that the state’s Economic Development Department hand over all documents related to a failed attempt to build an artificial sweetener plant in Moberly. The northeast Missouri town agreed to issue $39 million in bonds to Los Angeles-based Mamtek. But the project fell through, and Moberly was stuck with a $39 million tab when the company missed its bond payment. Republican Senator Kurt Schaefer of Columbia was appointed to the Governmental Accountability Committee to look into the matter:
“I would like to have more information," Schaefer said. "And what I would hope, and as I heard from them, as we get the documentation that we requested from the department, that we would see some level of confirmation of what was done, and I think based on today, we’re not really going to know until we see those documents.”
Schaefer says he expects those documents to be delivered to the committee in about two weeks. Meanwhile, the State Attorney General’s office and the prosecuting attorney for Randolph County have launched a joint investigation into the collapse of the Mamtek deal.
