Mozambique 13 Dec: More (mis)information on Mozambique debt scandal
Good afternoon. Revelations keep coming from the leaked parliamentary report into the $2 billion borrowed with illegal guarantees for an offshore security company - and so, it seems, does mis-information.
The inquiry witnesses spoke with surprising candour, in particular the CEO of the three companies, ProIndicus, EMATUM, and MAM. Antonio do Rosario confessed what investors and others have long suspected - that Mozambique’s secret services used tuna fishing as a front to disguise further defence spending.
ProIndicus, do Rosario told the inquiry, was first conceived as a $2 billion defence project, but had to broken into three bits to get banks to lend to it. The case for disgruntled EMATUM investors, who claim they were kept in the dark both about the destination of their money and Mozambique’s level of indebtedness, keeps getting stronger.
SEE: Mozambique tuna company was front for security spending, CEO admits
The hopeless business case behind the three companies was also laid bare. Antonio do Rosario, the secret services officer who headed up the three companies and is emerging as mastermind of the deals, now wants the Mozambique government to force oil and gas companies to use MAM and ProIndicus’ services - a tacit admission that, in an open tender competition, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Do Rosario cites blames global conspiracies as to why this might be the case, but his arguments don’t make sense.
SEE: Eni and Anadarko should be forced to use ProIndicus security, Mozambique inquiry told
He also claims ProIndicus had a contract with Vale to protect its coal exports along the railway from Tete to Beira. Vale denies ever having had such a contract with Vale - and is understandably worried about the reputational damage that being associated with ProIndicus could do.
SEE: ProIndicus says it protected Vale coal trains in central Mozambique
It’s not the first time that Mozambique’s so-called elites have apparently mis-informed parliament about these deals - quite apart from failing to inform parliament of their existence in the first place, as was their legal duty. Finance minister Adriano Maleiane told another parliamentary commission in May that the EMATUM fishing boats had to be refitted in South Africa in order to be able to export fish to Europe - something that was immediately denied by the supplier, Privinvest. Opposition party MDM now says that no boats were sent to South Africa, but rather that they have been poorly maintained in Mozambique.
The claim that ProIndicus protected the Sena railway line in central Mozambique raises the prospect that some of the $2 billion raised by the three companies has been spent on Mozambique’s terrestrial defence forces, who have been more energetic in fighting Renamo since the deals were signed in 2013.
The spreading of the conflict to Tete province in 2015 saw thousands of refugees flee across the border into Malawi, despite constant and self-contradictory protestations by the government that they were either Renamo fighters seeking a safe haven, or hungry Mozambicans looking for a handout from aid agencies. Zitamar re-visited the refugee camp in Malawi last week and found that the flow of refugees is accelerating - and that they still blame government aggression for driving them out.
FREE TO READ: Mozambicans fleeing to Malawi won’t return until peace deal is signed
The security forces were also blamed last week for an attack on prominent independent journalist John Chekwa, one of the few brave reporters living in the conflict zone who consistently brings the truth to the outside world. Someone doesn’t like it - and paid a visit to his house where they beat and tried to abduct Chekwa’s son.
FREE TO READ: Independent journalist attacked in central Mozambique
We’ll be back with more on Friday.
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