Guebuza cleared of Eni corruption allegation

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Guebuza cleared of Eni corruption allegation

8:20 CAT | 23 Jun 2016

Lusa (File photo) / Former Mozambican president Armando Guebuza

The Attorney-General’s Office has investigated accusations of corruption involving Mozambique’s former President, Armando Guebuza, and the Italian energy company ENI, and has found them groundless.

Last year, various of the Mozambican media carried stories alleging that a corruption scheme involving Guebuza and the former chief executive officer of ENI, Paolo Scaroni, was being investigated by prosecutors in Milan.

Allegedly Guebuza had various meetings with Scaroni which discussed how much tax ENI should pay the Mozambican state for its hydrocarbon concession in the Rovuma Basin, off the coast of the northern province of Cabo Delgado. Guebuza was also supposed to have offered Scaroni land in the resort of Bilene, in Gaza province, where the Italian would build a villa.

The prosecutors were said to have tapped Scaroni’s phone, and the record of his phone conversations were kept in the Milan attorney’s office.

Mozambican Attorney-General Beatriz Buchili, in her annual report to the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, said her office had looked into the case. The Mozambican prosecutors contacted their counterparts in Milan – and were told that there was no case in Milan involving Guebuza’s name.

Since the source for the news reports was supposedly the Milan attorney’s office, when it denied the existence of the case, the Mozambican prosecutors had no option but to shelve the allegation.

Source: AIM