Mozambique: NGO blames Switzerland, UK, France for hidden debts’ silence

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Mozambique: NGO blames Switzerland, UK, France for hidden debts’ silence

6:57 CAT | 19 Mar 2021

in file CoM

Borges Nhamirre, manager of the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), a Mozambican NGO that has been following the process of hidden debts of the Mozambican state, on Friday criticised Switzerland, the United Kingdom and France for the lack of initiatives to determine responsibility in the case.

“In Switzerland, nothing is moving forward,” he said in an Internet debate held by the Debt Monitoring Forum, a Mozambican civil society organisation, dedicated to keeping up with international cases.

Most of the €2 billion that in 2013 and 2014 gave rise to the hidden debts and was embezzled was handed over by the Credit Suisse bank, with the Mozambican authorities having made a request for cooperation to the Swiss prosecutor’s office – which in February 2020 told Lusa it had opened an investigation against “unknown people,” with no developments.

The situation “shows that Switzerland is not supporting Mozambique in the criminal accountability of entities under its jurisdiction in this process,” Nhamirre said.

On the other hand, “the United Kingdom has no criminal case against the London-based banks that provided the loans to Mozambique,” he added.

Although the banks were from other countries – Credit Suisse and Russia’s VTB – the transactions were underwritten through bank branches in the United Kingdom.

An administrative process was opened in the UK regarding the banks’ role, but it was a process “that fell through” without leading to any accountability, Nhamirre noted.

Besides, no other action was taken, concluding that “the United Kingdom is not showing solidarity with Mozambique in terms of sanctioning” the banks and others involved.

“But we also have France,” he stressed, where some of the ships were built and delivered to Ematum, one of the shipping companies involved in the scandal.

“The boats were built at the shipyards of Constructions Mécaniques de Normandie where part of Ematum’s money went, but France is not moving from a criminal point of view to help Mozambique,” he stressed.

A shipyard “that was not receiving large orders for boats got them from Mozambique.” Still, today, “France is sitting quietly in its corner doing nothing,” after Prinvinvest used French shipyards, he added.

The United Arab Emirates (US) has the headquarters of Privinvest, the shipyard at the centre of the financial scandal and to which a large part of the loans was channelled, but “due to its undemocratic nature, one could not expect more,” he said.

Source: Lusa