Mozambique: NGO slams Administrative Tribunal for lack of ruling in hidden debts case

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: NGO slams Administrative Tribunal for lack of ruling in hidden debts case

9:03 CAT | 24 Mar 2022

File photo: Folha de Maputo

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) on Wednesday criticised the Administrative Tribunal, , which is the highest audit body in Mozambique, for still not having ruled on financial offences allegedly committed in the context of the ‘hidden debts’ case, four years after the case was referred to that court.

“The Administrative Tribunal has not yet taken any decision regarding the request by the PGR [Attorney General’s Office] to hold public managers involved in illegal loans of over US$2 billion to the companies Proindicus, MAM and Ematum financially accountable,” said the CDD, a Mozambican non-governmental organisation (NGO).

In a statement, the organisation notes that on 22 March 2018, the PGR asked the Administrative Tribunal to hold 16 Mozambican state leaders and managers involved in authorising and issuing state guarantees “without any legal basis” financially accountable.

Among those targeted are former Finance Minister Manuel Chang, former governor of the Bank of Mozambique Ernesto Gove, former national director of the Treasury Maria Isaltina Lucas and former deputy national director of the Treasury Piedade Macamo.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office also requested the financial accountability of the former director of the State Information and Security Service (SISE) Gregório Leão and of the former director of Economic Intelligence of the institution António Carlos do Rosário.

Gregório Leão and António Carlos do Rosário and 17 other defendants are awaiting sentencing on August 1 on charges they are accused of having received bribes paid with hidden debt money.

Manuel Chang has been detained for more than three years in South Africa following an extradition request from the United States on the hidden debts case, followed by another extradition request from the Mozambican justice system in the same case.

In the final arguments of the trial in the main case of the hidden debts case – which ended this month – the Mozambican public prosecutor asked the court for the maximum sentence for eight of the 19 defendants, a sentence close to the maximum for 10 defendants and the acquittal of only one.

The public prosecutor also requested that the defendants be ordered to pay compensation of US$2.7 billion (2.3 billion euros), corresponding to the total hidden debts, plus interest of US$850.5 billion (779,000 euros) calculated until 2019.

The loans worth about 2.3 billion euros were secretly endorsed by the Frelimo government, led by Armando Guebuza, without the knowledge of Parliament or of the Administrative Tribunal.

Source: Lusa