More people have been charged in the “hidden debts” scandal, which resulted in three Mozambican companies contracting loans worth $2.2 billion from international banks to finance the purchase of fishing vessels and military assets at exceedingly inflated prices, between 2013 and 2014.
The term “hidden debts” refers to loans obtained from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB Russia by three Mozambican companies, ProIndicus, EMATUM (Mozambique Tuna Company) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management), with the sole contractor and supplier, the Abu Dhabi-based group Privinvest, selling them fishing boats, radar stations and other assets.
It is worth mentioning that a court in Maputo convicted 11 defendants to sentences between 10 t0 12 years in prison, with three of them still under provisional release pending their appeals. The same court acquitted eight defendants for lack of evidence.
The people formally charged by a court in Maputo are Ernesto Gouveia Gove, the former governor of Banco de Moçambique, the country’s central bank, Waldemar Fernando de Sousa and Joana David Matsombe, both former administrators at the central bank, and Manuel Chang, former Finance Minister.
Gove, de Sousa, and Matsombe are being charged with the crime of breach of trust (abuso de confiança ou função) – for promoting and authorising the contracting of the loans -, and Chang with the crime of breach of trust – for issuing sovereign guarantees in violation of the 2013 and 2014 budget law -, blackmail, criminal conspiracy, embezzlement, and money-laundering.
If convicted, the four defendants will be asked to repay the Mozambican state in full for the harm caused by taking the loans to the tune of $2.9bn, including interest.
The court has yet to set a date for the trial, perhaps it is waiting to see whether Chang, who’s languishing in a South African jail, pending an extradition battle pitting Mozambique and the United States, will eventually be extradited to Maputo.
Comment
It seems as if the judicial system is continuing with the practice of cherry-picking who to prosecute and who to protect – the same logic was used to choose who would be a defendant and who would be a witness in the main “hidden debts” trial.
Both Gove and Chang had people who worked under them. However, the public servants who worked under Chang are conspicuous by their absence in the case as defendants. Surprisingly, Isaltina Lucas, then head of the Treasury Department in the Finance Ministry, and her deputy, Piedade Macamo, have not been charged with any crimes.
Their names appeared in the initial charge sheet but were dropped as the main trial drew near. Both the Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) and the judge explained why their names had been removed. With no legal explanation given, it left the public speculating as to the reasons they were dropped.
Furthermore. towards the end of the main trial, the court was told that the PGR had opened criminal proceedings against Gove, Matsombe, de Sousa, Jean Boustani of Privinvest, as well as lawyers João Chivale, whose whereabouts remain unknown, and Fanuel Paunde on suspicion of money-laundering.
Meanwhile, Gove, Matsombe, de Sousa and Boustani were subpoenaed to testify as witnesses in the main trial. However, only Gove and Matsombe testified for when the day for de Sousa and Boustani arrived, the judge told the court that legally they could not do so as they had been named defendants in the autonomous legal case.
The question then is why Boustani has not been charged in the case in question. Legal observers say that the PGR and the judge seemed to have realised that Boustani could then say uncomfortable things related to the involvement of President Filipe Nyusi and produce the necessary receipts.
Consequently, it is this cherry-picking that convinces the public that the main trial and the forthcoming one are politically-biased against former President Armando Guebuza and those ideologically close to him.
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