Mozambique: Frelimo veterans distance themselves from convicted ex-minister Chang

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Mozambique: Frelimo veterans distance themselves from convicted ex-minister Chang

5:06 CAT | 14 Aug 2024

File photo: Folha de Maputo

The secretary-general of the Association of Combatants of the Struggle for the Liberation of Mozambique (ACCLIN), Fernando Faustino, distanced himself on Tuesday from what he called the “shenanigans” of former minister Manuel Chang, condemned by the US courts in the case of the hidden debts.

“That’s the result of what happened in his life, it has nothing to do with Frelimo. You can be a member of Frelimo, but the fact that you are a member of Frelimo doesn’t mean that you have to get involved in scams,” the leader of the veterans structure of the ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) told journalists during a press conference in Nampula, in the north of the country.

Fernando Faustino said the former Mozambican finance minister was only taking responsibility for the irregularities he committed: “When you are in Frelimo, you have to know that when you commit an irregularity, you will be punished, you will be sanctioned (…) everyone takes responsibility.”

Manuel Chang, Mozambique’s former finance minister, was sentenced on Thursday in the United States as part of the hidden debts case.

Chang was accused of accepting bribes and conspiring to divert funds from Mozambique’s efforts to protect and expand its natural gas and fishing industries in a plan to enrich himself and cheat investors. Prosecutors accused Chang of collecting seven million dollars in bribes transferred via US banks to an associate’s European accounts.

The former ruler was arrested on 29 December 2018 at O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, on his way to Dubai, based on an international arrest warrant issued by the United States on 27 December, for his involvement in the so-called hidden debts case.

Chang rejects all the accusations and points to the current president, Filipe Nyusi, who was Minister of Defence at the time, as the person who ordered him to sign the bank guarantees that made the hidden debts possible.

The hidden debts scandal dates back to 2013 and 2014, when the then Minister of Finance approved state guarantees on loans from Proinducus, Ematum and MAM to Credit Suisse and VTB banks without parliamentary approval.

Discovered in 2016, the debts were estimated at around $2.7 billion (around €2.55 billion), according to figures presented by the Mozambican Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Mozambique was then one of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world for two decades, according to the World Bank, but ended up plunged into financial upheaval.

Source: Lusa