Attorney General has the hardest job in Mozambique – Alex Vines

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Attorney General has the hardest job in Mozambique – Alex Vines

12:04 CAT | 16 Jun 2017

Chatham House (File photo) / Alex Vines

The director of the Africa Programme of the UK’s Royal Institute of International Affairs has said in an interview with Lusa that the position of Attorney General is the most difficult job in Mozambique.

“The most difficult job in Mozambique is not being the president, but the attorney general, who has to decide what to do about the [Kroll] debt report” Vines said in an interview at Chatham House in London.

“Disclosure of an executive summary of the audit will be done quickly,” Vines said, but disclosure of the full report “will be a lengthy process and may even take place only after the Frelimo congress [in September].”

According to Vines, the Frelimo congress is dominating Mozambican domestic politics. “Frelimo is caught between a rock and a hard place, faced with the difficult situation of knowing that the current president was minister of defence, and the president at the time, Armando Guebuza, was the leader of the party when the debts were incurred.”

The risks to the party, “are high because of the importance of the people who were probably aware of the loans to Mozambique Asset Management and Proindicus”, he said,

The two public companies borrowed from Russian VTB bank and Credit Suisse, with state guarantee and without the amounts being entered in the official accounts or reported to international donors.

Asked whether disclosure of a summary of the audit commissioned to Kroll would be sufficient to advance the processes of debt renegotiation with creditors and the resumption of international financial aid, Alex Vines said no.

“A summary is not enough – more information will be needed. Debt holders want progress but also realise that this will only happen after the Frelimo congress,” Vines said. “Everyone wants an agreement, but there will be detailed calculations about who was aware of the loans, who was involved, and Frelimo will have to think very carefully about how to handle it.”

Source: Lusa