Mozambique: Mocuba teacher who exposed alleged undue salary deductions found dead - reports
File photo: DW
A Maputo urban district court on Friday sentenced Luis Cezerilo, a former adviser to the Minister of Justice and former National Director of Prison Services, to a prison term of 11 months for abuse of his office and making false statements to the public authorities.
According to a report in Friday’s issue of the online version of the independent daily “O Pais”, the court, sitting in KaMpfumu urban district, found that in July 2010 Cezerilo had ordered the payment out of public funds of the visa and travel costs to Brazil of a friend, Eunice Temba.
Cezerilo had ordered a subordinate, Marcia Bila, to include Temba’s name on a list of colleagues being sent to Brazil for work purposes. She was falsely identified as a worker at the Justice Ministry who wanted to go on a study visit to Brazil.
Cezerilo admitted ordering payment of Temba’s visa – but claimed that the money was her own, and did not come from the Ministry’s funds. He said Temba had money to pay for the visa and air ticket, and to go shopping in Brazil.
Marcia Bila told the court that Cezerilo had indeed told her to have the visa for Temba issued. She added that, at the time, she did not know that Temba was a friend of Cezerilo.
Bila added that there were visits for Ministry staff financed by non-governmental organisations. These visits included people who had no contractual ties with the Ministry, but Ministry staff put their names on the list and dealt with the correspondence.
The judge, Helena Matola, converted the prison term into a fine of six per cent of the minimum wage for every day that Cezerilo should have spent in jail. That comes to about 84,250 meticais (US$1.430 at current exchange rates).
Cezerilo announced that he intends to appeal against the verdict and sentence.
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