Mozambique: PM urges CEDSIF to strengthen e-SISTAFE management – Watch

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Mozambique: PM urges CEDSIF to strengthen e-SISTAFE management – Watch

5:49 CAT | 19 May 2021

Photo: TVM

Mozambican Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario on Monday urged the new Chairperson of the Board of the Centre for the Development of Financial Information Systems (CEDSIF), Enoque Sueia, to seek permanent and dynamic solutions which will strengthen the management and safety of the Electronic State Financial Management System (e-SISTAFE), in the face of eventual cyber-attacks and frauds.

Addressing the swearing-in ceremony in Maputo, Rosario said the CEDSIF chairman must also ensure the success of the reforms underway in the implementation of the new law on SISTAFE, ensuring that the Planning and Budgeting subsystem becomes fully operational, and that electronic tools are created to support the subsystem of Internal Auditing, Monitoring and Assessment.

“We recommend that you improve the management mechanisms which must attract both public and private sectors so that they benefit from the services CEDSIF can offer, such as electronic data transfer,” Rosario said.

Rosario pointed out that CEDSIF, and e-SISTAFE in general, have been recurrent targets of cyber-attacks, leading to damage or data theft, but also causing difficulties in providing services and opening space for further illicit acts.

“The frauds against e-SISTAFE are often carried out from access to the user networks in the State Apparatus, as well as by the experts in charge of the system management,” Rosario added.

Rosario stressed that the CEDSIF leadership must manage and enhance e-SISTAFE in order to improve gradually the correct management of public assets. It must also assist the government with the identification of the right solutions leading to a consolidation of transparent management and internal control.

CEDSIF is an institution linked to the Ministry of Economy and Finance which was set up to modernise the public finance management information systems, for all state and municipal bodies. CEDSIF effectively became the guardian of all the Mozambican state’s electronic money. But it has been hit by repeated scandals.

The latest of these resulted in a court case last year in which senior CEDSIF technician Gama Nhampalele was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment for his role in the theft of over 155 million meticais (about 2.6 million US dollars at current exchange rates) from the Mozambican treasury.

Nhampalele abused his access to the CEDSIF computer system to divert money to at least four companies, some of which belong to staff who work for the Mozambican Tax Authority (AT), and had commercial relations with CEDSIF staff.

Sitting in the dock alongside Nhampalele was Liliana Bule, who, according to the prosecution, received nine million meticais of the money. She was sentenced to ten years imprisonment.

The prosecution argued that 28 fraudulent payments were made via CEDSIF, between January 2016 and January 2020, totalling over 155.7 million meticais. In addition to serving their prison sentences, Nhapamelele and Bule were ordered to repay the stolen money.