Mozambique: 82 Ethiopians heading to South Africa detained in Manica for illegal immigration
FILE: For illustration purposes only. [in file CoM]
Two former managers of Mozambique Airlines (LAM), Antonio Pinto, once the chairperson of the company’s Executive Commission, and Helder Fumo, its former financial director, are being blamed for the state of technical bankruptcy the company has been facing since 2015, according to a report in Friday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”.
The two were detained on Monday, in a case of alleged deliberate mismanagement, involving undue payments, following an investigation by the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption (GCCC). Two days later Sheila Temporario was also detained – she is a representative of the marketing and communication company Executive Mozambique, which was responsible for publishing LAM’s in-flight magazine, “Indico”.
According to the “O Pais” report, Pinto and Fumo were allegedly responsible for over-invoicing in the acquisition of goods and services. They are said to have hired aircraft in South Africa for prices above those normally practised on the African aviation market.
They had also allegedly opted to purchase spare parts from a company that charged much higher prices than Embraer or Boeing, the companies that manufactured the planes flown by LAM.
As for Executive Mozambique, this company allegedly signed a marketing and communication contract with LAM for 50,000 US dollars a month for editing and publishing “Indico”. This seems an extraordinary sum for a magazine which only appears every two months, has a print run of just 15,000, and devotes many of its glossy pages to advertising.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the general secretary of the Attorney-General’s Office, Agostinho Rututo, said “The problem of corruption is a serious matter. It’s in the interest of the Public Prosecutor that these cases are fought against. It’s in the interest of Mozambicans that this evil be combated”.
Rututo expected this LAM case and all other dossiers on corruption to come to trial. “People have been detained, and there will be a trial”, he insisted.
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