Former security minister asks for ‘true justice’ in hidden debts scandal

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Former security minister asks for ‘true justice’ in hidden debts scandal

7:41 CAT | 11 May 2016

Mozambique’s former security minister, Sergio Vieira, returned to the attack on Tuesday over the massive government guaranteed loans of 2013-2014 which added two billion dollars to the country’s public debt, and suggested that those responsible should be jailed.

In his weekly column in the independent daily “O Pais”, Vieira named no names, but declared “Return what you have stolen, and with true justice jail will become your home. In Dubai, in Switzerland, in Panama your loot is found, and do not oblige us, our children and our grandchildren to pay for your thefts”.

The two billion dollars was lent to three companies owned by state or quasi-state concerns – the Mozambique Tuna Company, EMATUM (850 million dollars), Proindicus, a company set up to provide security services for oil and gas companies operating in the Rovuma Basin, off the coast of Cabo Delgado province (622 million dollars), and Mozambique Assets Management, MAM, which is to provide maritime repairs and maintenance (535 million dollars).

Much of this money has been used to buy military equipment such as naval speedboats, drones and radar systems. Vieira was outraged to find that defence and security functions had been farmed out to companies, when the purchase of military equipment ought to be a state-to-state operation.

“Since when do real or fictitious companies buy patrol boats, radars, planes, helicopters, vehicles for the defence forces, arms and ammunition?”, he asked. “This was always purchased under bilateral agreements between states, without companies or banks in Switzerland or anywhere else acting as intermediaries”. (Vieira was referring to the Swiss bank Credit Suisse, which lent much of the money).

“Why is this happening now?”, Vieira asked. “Who authorized or ordered this? Why the use of almost anonymous companies, theoretically linked to this or that Ministry and which nobody knows as buyers of weaponry?”

“How did they do this outside of the Constitution and the law, outside of the State Budget and of the Administrative Tribunal”, he continued. “Why if not to rob us better?”

Vieira was disappointed by the explanations given by Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario at his Maputo press conference of 29 April. The information given was less than what was required – but he understood there had not been sufficient time to make a full inquiry and that the current government had only been discovering bit by bit what had happened under its predecessor,

Vieira praised the Attorney-General’s Office for opening inquiries into the EMATUM, Proindicus and MAM loans. He hoped there would be “a serious inquiry with judicial implications”, and urged the formation of a Commission of Inquiry consisting of “respected, competent, upright and prestigious figures”. Such a Commission “will give Mozambicans confidence”.

Source: AIM