Ports concessions: PGR requests annulment of MoUs between government and Cornelder

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Ports concessions: PGR requests annulment of MoUs between government and Cornelder

11:45 CAT | 17 Oct 2017

File photo / Beira port

The Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) has requested that the memoranda of understanding signed by the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the companies Cornelder Moçambique and Cornelder Quelimane be declared null and void.

According to data obtained from the PGR by Notícias, an alleged correspondence was sent to the Prime Minister’s office with a document in which the public prosecutor [IS RIGHT LUCIA? YOU SAID ‘Publ’] suggests a conflict of interest arising out of kinship between Minister Carlos Mesquita and the late administrator-delegate of Cornelder Moçambique, SA, Adelino Mesquita.

The memorandums of understanding signed by Carlos Mesquita on behalf of the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the companies run by his brother granted concessions in the main national ports.

The PGR indicates that at that time, in July of last year, the Central Office for the Fight Against Corruption (GCCC) requested the Central Commission of Public Ethics to give an opinion as to a possible conflict of interest in the minister’s action by initialling a memoranda of understanding with companies represented in the act by one of his brothers.

In its deliberation, according to the PGR, the Central Commission of Public Ethics, in compliance with article 50 f) of Law no. 16/2012 of August 14, sent the GCCC resolution No. 6/CCEP/2017, in which it declared that the Minister of Transport and Communications was in conflict of interest.

The GCCC, intervening in accordance with the law, analysed the deliberation in question with the purpose of ascertaining whether the acts declared in violation of the conflict of interest system were likely to stimulate some legal type of crime that the body was competent to investigate or any other.

After analysing the facts, the GCCC concluded that there was no place for criminal accountability on the part of the minister because, in its opinion, the constituent elements of corruption were not fulfilled, according to the source of the Neotícias.

The PGR, to whom the GCCC decision was sent, also clarified that the occurrence of a criminal event presupposes that the elements that are part of it are present and of the assessment collected, for example, that there were undue advantages for the ruler or to third parties. Moreover, in its deliberation, the Central Commission of Public Ethics concluded that there were no conflicts of interest of an economic nature, but acknowledged the existence of conflict arising from kinship ties between the Minister of Transport and Communications and the then Managing Director of Cornelder Moçambique, SA.

“In the case in question, the Minister was to have proceeded in accordance with the Public Probity Law (articles 35 and 37 of the LPP), refraining from practising the act embodied in the signing of the aforementioned memorandum of understanding,” the PGR states.

Source: Notícias