Guinea-Bissau: Head of forests, fauna department held on suspicion of corruption

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Guinea-Bissau: Head of forests, fauna department held on suspicion of corruption

11:15 CAT | 31 Aug 2023

File photo: Screen grab of Capital FM

The director-general of Forests and Fauna in Guinea-Bissau, Leonel Mané, has been detained by the Judicial Police (PJ) and is due to appear before the public prosecutor’s office on Thursday, a source from the police force told Lusa on Wednesday.

According to the PJ (the country’s main criminal investigation agency) source, Leonel Mané was detained on Tuesday following an investigation into a complaint that he had allegedly illegally authorised the felling of trees to extract timber.

Guinea-Bissau’s forestry law prohibits the felling of trees in certain areas of the country and from time to time there are reports from the public that the order is being flouted “with the connivance of the authorities”.

The source also said that the PJ suspects that the authorisation from the director general of Forests and Fauna was given “fraudulently”.

Also detained in the same operation were the accountant for the Forest and Fauna directorate-general, João Malaca Quindoco, and an exator (controller of accounts) that the Ministry of Finance placed in the Ministry of Agriculture, Baba Baio.

A spokesman for the Guinea-Bissau Workers’ Party (PTG), to which Leonel Mané belongs, called the detention of the director-general of Forests and Fauna “pure persecution of the party”, led by MP and former Minister of the Interior and Agriculture, Botche Candé.

“We clearly know that the detention, this humiliation of our director-general is just a strategy to target the leader of our party, but we won’t allow it,” the PTG spokesman noted.

This political party, which has six of the 102 members of parliament, is part of the coalition that currently governs Guinea-Bissau, holding the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Secretary of State for Communities.

Source: Lusa