Mozambique and Saudi Arabia strengthen cooperation - Notícias report
File photo / Former Mozambican president Armando Guebuza
Former Mozambican President Armando Guebuza has told the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry that he would act today in the same way in guaranteeing the US$2.2 billion so-called hidden debts.
“I believe any responsible government would act as we did under the same conditions, and if we were in the same conditions and had to make the same decisions today, considering the circumstances at that time, we would do just the same again, in the defence of our beloved homeland and the wonderful Mozambican people,” Guebuza told the committee.
Guebuza’s statements are contained in the final report of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI), which was released to the Mozambican media today.
According to Guebuza, the loans were conceived and arranged in a secretive manner because of classified information held by the Defence and Security Forces, especially the State Information and Security Services (SISE).
Citing acts of destabilisation by the armed wing of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party, the threat of piracy in Mozambican waters and the need to protect the activity of oil companies, Guebuza stated that it was necessary to ensure peace, stability and the defence of national sovereignty and integrity.
According to the Mozambican press, the former head of state reminded CPI deputies of his past as a nationalist fighting Portuguese colonial domination, saying he had been arrested by the PIDE [Portuguese political police].
“I left my family at a very young age to join Frelimo in Dar-es-Salam. On the way, I was arrested, returned to the country and sent to jail at the behest of the PIDE. After leaving, I again fled to join Frelimo, to fight and to liberate the country. It is for the country and with the same sense of patriotism that I live today,” the former head of state said.
Indeed, he said, the work accomplished by himself and former colleagues in government during his two terms as president continued to be a source of pride.
The CPI’s hearings on the so-called hidden debts have now ended, and the final report will be debated by the plenary of the Assembly of the Republic in closed session.
The CPI was set up after it came to light that the government of Armando Guebuza had endorsed loans worth US$1.4 billion to companies where Mozambican intelligence was among the shareholders without informing the Assembly of the Republic, as well as another similar loan of US$850 million in favour of the Mozambican Tuna Company (Ematum), owned by the SISE.
According to Mozambican press which reportedly had access to the final parliamentary report, the CPI deputies would have concluded that there was a violation of the Constitution, the budget laws of 2013 and 2014, the law on defence and security policy and currency exchange law in the contracting of the debts.
Its recommendations include a judicial inquiry into the possibility of illegal use of public funds by private persons and the recommendation that the companies benefiting from the hidden loans should bear the burden of the loans in their entirety without any burden falling on the public purse.
The revelation of hidden loans led the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a group of top state budget donors to suspend funding for Mozambique pending an international audit, which the Public Attorney’s Office announced in November it had selected North American company Kroll to carry out.
On October 25, the Mozambican government publicly acknowledged it inability to make forthcoming repayments, asking creditors for loan restructuring and a new package of financial assistance from the IMF.
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