Palomar Consultancy wants meeting with Kroll on Mozambique debt

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Palomar Consultancy wants meeting with Kroll on Mozambique debt

11:26 CAT | 03 Jul 2017

Palomar Consultancy on Friday restated its readiness to meet with the Kroll personnel responsible for auditing Mozambique public debt, on the grounds that that this was the only way to explain the consultancy’s involvement in Mozambican financial transactions.

“Palomar have once again stated their willingness to meet Kroll, and to share any and all information required to ensure that the Mozambique report is complete and accurate with respect to Palomar’s role,” a spokesman from the consultancy told Lusa.

The same source declined to comment on the consultancy’s involvement in the preparation of the Mozambique Asset Management and Proindicus loans, arguing that any explanation would be given to the report’s authors first rather than to the media.

In the note sent to Lusa, Palomar said that it had “consistently offered to meet and cooperate with Kroll since the beginning of the audit so that Palomar’s involvement in the transactions could be fully understood and represented accurately. Kroll, however, did not respond to this offer”.

The “negligence” of the Kroll auditors, hired by the Swedish embassy to audit two loans worth more than US$1 billion loans secured by the Mozambican state without informing national institutions or international partners, had “resulted in a flawed and misleading report”.

The hidden debt scandal broke in April 2016 with the disclosure by the Wall Street Journal of a hidden loan of US$622 million taken on by ProIndicus and a further US$535 million lent to MAM, both guaranteed by the Mozambican state.

Source: Lusa