PGR analysing report with Kroll auditors “to gauge whether it conforms to terms of reference”; warns against forgeries

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

PGR analysing report with Kroll auditors “to gauge whether it conforms to terms of reference”; warns against forgeries

8:17 CAT | 24 May 2017

The Mozambican Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) on Wednesday warned that forgers are planting in social media supposed documents from the PGR, and even what purports to be the report of the audit into the security-related companies Ematum, Proindicus and MAM.

As part of the investigations into the three companies, the PGR hired the London branch of the US company Kroll Associates to audit them. Kroll delivered the audit report to the PGR on 12 May, and to date it has not been made public.

Speaking at a Maputo press conference, the PGR spokesperson, Orlando Generoso, said that anything supposedly from the PGR, but which had not come through the official channels, was a fake.

Earlier this month, the PGR issued a statement denying reports circulating in WhatsApp and Facebook, that it had requested the country’s banks to reveal details of the accounts of President Filipe Nyusi.

A fake PGR statement had been circulating, clearly imitating the real PGR request in early April for the lifting of banking secrecy on the accounts of former President Armando Guebuza, and several of his relatives and collaborators, in connection with the Ematum, Proindicus and MAM investigations.

Generoso again categorically denied that any such documents, supposedly from the PGR, were genuine. Publishing such documents in social media was “a clear manipulation of public opinion”, he said, and could constitute a criminal offence. He added that the PGR is investigating the authorship of the forged documents, with the assistance of foreign counterparts, and involving experts in information and communication technologies.

In one case, the origin is absolutely clear. On 14 May Mozambique’s most notorious assassin, Momad Assife Abdul Satar (“Nini”), one of the shady business figures who ordered the assassination of Mozambique’s foremost investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, in November 2000, published on his Facebook page what he claimed was the cover and contents page of the Kroll report.

While this is not obviously a forgery, it is odd that it is in English, when one of the reasons for Kroll’s delay in submitting the report was that it needed time to ensure a good translation into Portuguese.

Satar promised that he would publish the entire report on his Facebook page but, as far as AIM can tell, it has not yet appeared.

Satar was released on parole after serving half his sentence of 24 years and six months for the Cardoso murder. He left the country, supposedly for medical treatment in 2015, and has not yet returned. The PGR is convinced that Satar, even from his cell in the Maputo top security prison, was involved in the planning of other crimes, notably the wave of kidnappings of business people that has shaken Mozambican cities since 2011. It has now issued an international warrant for his arrest.

Asked about any connection between Satar and the fake PGR documents, Generoso declained to comment.

He said that right now the PGR and the Kroll auditors “are analysing the audit report to gauge whether it conforms to the terms of reference”. This analysis has thus been under way for 12 days – much longer than anyone had expected.

Generoso declined to say how much longer it would take, and refused to give any deadline for publishing the summary of the report.

He promised that the PGR “will share the results of the audit with the public through the mass media”. Anything supposedly from the audit which reaches the public through any other channel “should be regarded as irrelevant”, he said.

Generoso added that the PGR is well aware of the expectations that the audit has aroused in Mozambican society. He appealed for “calm and serenity” while the PGR and the auditors concluded their work, and stressed that the audit findings would be “of the greatest interest” for the criminal investigations into the three companies now under way.

At this rate it seems unlikely that the executive summary of the report will be in the hands of the media before a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Frelimo Party scheduled for this weekend. Asked whether the PGR was deliberately delaying publication, so that the report could be discussed by the Central Committee first, Generoso denied the suggestion.

“Our activity has nothing to do with political parties”, he said. “The report will be published as stated in the terms of reference”.

In 2013 and 2014 Ematum, Proindicus and MAM took loans of over two billion US dollars from European banks which were illicitly guaranteed by the previous Mozambican government, under President Armando Guebuza. Those guarantees added 20 per cent to Mozambique’s foreign debt, pushing it to unsustainable levels.

The Guebuza government attempted to keep the Proindicus and MAM loans entirely secret. When the true extent of the undisclosed loans became public knowledge in April 2016, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), soon followed by the country’s other major western partners, cut off financial assistance to Mozambique.

The IMF has made publication of the audit a fundamental condition for the resumption of normal relations.

Source: AIM