ANEA director denies abuse of office

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ANEA director denies abuse of office

8:24 CAT | 18 Apr 2018

Notícias

The general director of Mozambique’s National Atomic Energy Agency (ANEA), Alexandre Mapossa, has confirmed in court on Tuesday that ANEA did charge money from the companies it was inspecting, but denied that he had benefitted personally from this.

According to the report in Wednesday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias” of Mapossa’s trial on corruption charges before the Kampfumo district court, in Maputo city, he confirmed that, when ANEA went to inspect companies, it charged them for travel, accommodation and meals for the ANEA inspectors. The prosecution regards these charges as arbitrary and illegal.

Since after the companies had paid for the inspections, ANEA issued licences allowing them to import radioactive materials, it is very easy to interpret these payments as bribes extorted from the companies.

The prosecution says that, during the time Mapossa was at the head of ANEA, these payments amounted to 400,000 meticais (about 6,670 US dollars).

Mapossa said that two companies paid 120,000 meticais each for inspections, and that he had then authorised payment of 240,000 meticais in rent for ANEA staff who were not entitled to a rent allowance – even though, according to the prosecution, there was an explicit order from the Ministry of Finance that the rent could not be paid.

Mapossa claimed he had had worked out how much to charge the companies on the basis of “geographical location and market costs”, and that charging them 120,000 meticais each was “in the public interest”.

The 240,000 meticais paid in rent was a debt, he said. The staff members in question had already occupied the house, and he had agreed with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Energy to regularise the situation by paying off the debt.

“Everything I did was to solve the disorganisation I found at ANEA and was in the public interest. I didn’t benefit from a single cent of the money”, said Mapossa.

The prosecution, however, regards it as proven that the charges Mapossa had imposed on the companies inspected were arbitrary, and were an abuse of his office.

The judge, Evandra Uamusse, will deliver her verdict on 30 April.

Source: AIM