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Former Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Thursday attacked the Maputo City Court for speaking “too much” about defence and security matters, in the current trial of 19 people (including Guebuza’s oldest son, Ndambi Guebuza) for crimes arising from the scandal of Mozambique’s “hidden debts”.
Guebuza is the last witness to be heard in the case, before the prosecution and defence embark on their final statements.
Prosecutor Sheila Marrengula asked Guebuza why his government, instead of building up the capacity of Mozambique’s own forces, had instead handed over coastal security to a company, Proindicus. Although the shareholders in Proindicus are public bodies, it was set up as a private company.
“This is a matter of defence and security”, said Guebuza, “Although we are in court, I don’t think this is the moment when I should speak about matters of security. So I won’t speak about this”.
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The judge, Efigenio Baptista, had already warned Guebuza that, as a witness, he must reply to all questions put to him. Nonetheless, Baptista allowed him to get away with refusing to answer Marrengula’s question.
“I think too much has been said about defence and security in our court”, the former President added. “We shouldn’t do this. We have to defend our sovereignty. We should solve our problems among ourselves”.
Marrengula pointed out that, under the Mozambican constitution, it is Mozambique’s own forces that have the exclusive responsibility for guaranteeing the country’s defence and security. So how was it that Guebuza’s government had decided to farm out coastal security to what was theoretically a private company, Proindicus?
Guebuza replied that this was not the first time that State functions had been farmed out to non-State bodies. The tasks of the security service, SISE, had been farmed out to the company, Kroll, he claimed.
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In fact, Kroll is a forensic auditing company which exposed the gigantic fraud of Proindicus and its sister companies, Ematum (Mozambique Tuna Company), and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management). But Guebuza dismissed Kroll as “a company of foreign spies”, echoing what one of the main defendants, Antonio Carlos do Rosario, once the head of economic intelligence at SISE, had said repeatedly during his testimony last year.
Like Rosario, Guebuza offered no evidence for the claim that Kroll is a nest of spies. His words were a thinly disguised attack on the Attorney-General’s Office (PGR), which in 2016 hired Kroll to audit Proindicus, Ematum and MAM.
The sole contractor for the three fraudulent companies was the Abu Dhabi based group, Privinvest. Kroll’s audit found that Privinvest had overcharged the three companies by more than seven hundred million dollars for the fishing boats, radar stations and other assets it had supplied.
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At key moments in his testimony, Guebuza lost his memory. Asked when he had become aware that Privinvest would supply the companies, he said he could not remember. Nor did he know whether the project for coastal protection had been drawn up by Privinvest.
But one person who did know was the founder of Privinvest, Iskandar Safa, who sent a letter to Guebuza in December 2012, in which he described the project for protecting Mozambique’s Exclusive Economic Zone as “our (i.e. Privinvest’s) proposal”. Safa spoke of how the bank Credit Suisse was interested in financing the project, and how Privinvest wanted to form “a strategic relationship” with Mozambique in naval construction.
When Marrengula asked about this letter, Guebuza brushed it aside. “What’s the relevance? It wasn’t written by me”, he said. He could not even remember if he had issued any dispatch in response to Safa’s letter.
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Asked about meetings he had chaired, where the coastal protection project was discussed, Guebuza replied “I chaired many meetings during the ten years I was President. I can’t remember them all”.
Frequently, Guebuza tried to shift responsibility onto the man who became his successor, Filipe Nyusi, who was Minister of Defence at the time. Nyusi chaired the Operational Command of the defence and security forces, and Guebuza claimed he had delegated much of the detailed responsibility for the project to the Operational Command.
He suggested that, if the court wanted more details, it should “call somebody from the Operational Command”.
But in fact, last week the court did hear from the number two on the Operational Command, former Interior Minister Alberto Mondlane, who chaired the command when Nyusi was absent. Mondlane had a very different view of the coastal security projects from Guebuza.
He claimed the whole idea came from SISE which brought the matter to the Joint Command of the Defence and Security Forces, chaired by Guebuza, and to the Operational Command. He accused the SISE management of the time of concealing information. “At the Joint Command, we never spoke about Privinvest, or running up the debts”, declared Mondlane.
“I feel betrayed”, said Mondlane. The unfolding scandal of the hidden debts “is not what we discussed at the Joint Command or the Operational Command. SISE should have protected us, instead of hiding information from us”.
Marrengula also asked Guebuza if he knew anything about the “success fees” (the polite term for bribes) paid by Privinvest. Guebuza replied he was not aware of any such payments.
Nor did he know anything about Teofilo Nhangumele, another of the accused with close SISE ties, who has claimed credit for bringing Privinvest and the coastal protection project to Mozambique. Guebuza said the first time he could recall meeting Nhangumele was when he was arrested, and in the same prison as his son, in 2019.
Guebuza will continue giving testimony on Friday.
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