Mozambique asks the EU to resume direct support for the budget suspended in 2016

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Mozambique asks the EU to resume direct support for the budget suspended in 2016

2:29 CAT | 19 Jun 2025

File photo: RM

Yesterday (18-06), the Mozambican government asked the European Union (EU) to consider resuming direct support for the State Budget, suspended in May, 2016, when the ‘hidden debts’ were discovered. “Mozambique reiterated its request for the EU to consider resuming direct support for the State Budget,” said Mário Ngoenha, director of the Office of the National Authorizer of the Mozambican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, when reading the joint statement following the partnership dialogue between the government and the European Union, held today in Maputo.

In turn, in the same joint statement, the EU highlights the “need for a favourable environment to increase trade and investment flows with Mozambique”. The scandal over the hidden debts of the Mozambican state dates back to 2013 and 2014, when the then Minister of Finance, Manuel Chang, now detained in the United States, approved, without the knowledge of parliament, state guarantees on loans to the companies Proinducus, Ematum and MAM from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB.

Discovered in 2016, the debts were estimated at around US$2.7 billion (more than €2.3 billion), according to figures presented by the Mozambican Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has since won legal disputes involving the case in court, both in the country and abroad.

Mozambique was, at the time, one of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world for two decades, according to the World Bank, but ended up plunging into financial turmoil after the case, considered one of the country’s biggest financial scandals and which led to the blocking, at the time, of foreign aid from several countries and multilateral organisations.

Today’s meeting between the government and the European bloc also discussed terrorism in Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country, where the European Union has been supporting the Mozambican armed forces with training and non-lethal equipment, as well as the need for reforms in the judicial system within the scope of the electoral process.

Source: Lusa