Mozambique: Frelimo says President “has nothing to do with the question of the debts”

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Mozambique: Frelimo says President “has nothing to do with the question of the debts”

4:35 CAT | 22 Nov 2019

A spokesman for the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo) said on Thursday that President of Mozambique Filipe Nyusi has nothing to do with the question of the debts. This was after the President’s name being mentioned during the trial of the case in New York.

The head of state “remains calm and is following events” and “has nothing to do with the question of the debts” said Caifadine Manasse, secretary of the party’s central committee for Communication and Image, in statements to the agency’s English Information Office (AIM).

Regarding the fact that the party was also named, the official said that the political force was “following the trial”.

The Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), the country’s third-largest parliamentary party, yesterday called on Filipe Nyusi to resign within 72 hours, and on the ruling Frelimo party to explain its role in the case of the hidden debts.

Jean Boustani, the main defendant in the case of the Mozambican state’s hidden debts and on now trial in the United States, said on Wednesday that Privinvest paid US$5 million (€4.5 million) towards Filipe Nyusi’s presidential campaign in 2014 (one million dollars for his own campaign and four million for Frelimo) at the request of former president Armando Guebuza.

READ: What Boustani really said in New York trial; about Mozambique and more – full transcripts from the court

At a previous trial session, US prosecutors presented bank records showing a US$10 million (€9 million) transfer from a Privinvest subsidiary to Frelimo in four tranches in 2014.

The same AIM text states that legislation on financing Mozambican election campaigns “is extraordinarily permissive,” with parties and candidates “only obliged to account for the money they received from the state budget.”

“The law explicitly allows contributions from foreign citizens or NGOs. It only bans contributions from foreign governments or governmental organisations or foreign public companies,” while “foreign private companies are not mentioned,” the text adds.

Source: Lusa