Tanzania to deport over 500 suspected terrorists for trial in Mozambique; Court prepares to try defendants in hidden debts case

Welcome to Zitamar’s daily Mozambique briefing for 23 November, 2020

Nov 23, 2020

Today: Energy Regulatory Authority opens expressions of interest from prospective bidders for Dondo solar farm project, Rovuma Hall, Radisson Blu Hotel, Maputo
Today: Webinar ‘celebrating the life and work of Carlos Cardoso’, featuring Graca Machel, Fernando Lima, Marcelo Mosse, Teodato Hunguana, Abdul Carimo Issa, Kekobad Patel, Tomas Vieira Mario — 4pm Mozambique time. Zoom link here
Tomorrow: Heat wave warning for the provinces of Maputo, Gaza, and Tete, with temperatures between 40-45℃. It will also be hot and stormy in Manica, Niassa, Nampula e Zambézia

From the Zitamar Live Blog:

Mozambique’s death toll from covid-19 has reached 124
Maputo City has 1,518 of the country’s 1,758 active cases of covid-19

The best of the rest / Today’s headlines:

Tanzania to deport over 500 suspected terrorists for trial in Mozambique (Notícias, DW, DW, VOA)
Court prepares to try defendants in hidden debts case (AIM, Mediafax)
Medication rules relax, as violence forces Cabo Delgado clinics to close (AIM)
Man arrested for selling fake covid-19 tests (Lusa)
Vietnamese jailed for smuggling rhino horns out of Mozambique (VnExpress)
ENH profits rose, but assets fell this year (Carta de Moçambique)

Tanzania to deport over 500 suspected terrorists for trial in Mozambique (Notícias, DW, DW, VOA)
Some 516 suspects of terrorism and collaborators of jihahadist violence being held in Tanzania will be deported to Mozambique to be tried for crimes committed in Cabo Delgado province. The terrorists were seeking refuge in Tanzania because of attacks by the Mozambican Defence and Security Forces when they were captured by Tanzanian authorities. Mozambique has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Tanzania, under which both countries’ police forces will collaborate to tackle the insurgency. According to Mozambique’s police chief, Bernardino Rafael, the key points of the memorandum include an agreement to extradite all those accused, and to maintain the security of the border. According to DW, Tanzanian authorities arrested 562 terrorist suspects and collaborators after an attack in the Tanzanian village of Kitaya in October, and recently arrested an unspecified number of people in the towns of Kigoma and Mwanza, close to the borders of Rwanda and Burundi, who told Tanzanian authorities that they were on their way to Mozambique to join the insurgents. The group being deported includes Mozambicans, Tanzanians, Somalis, Congolese, Rwandans and Burundians.

Court prepares to try defendants in hidden debts case (AIM, Mediafax)
Four people, including former finance minister Manuel Chang, are in the process of being formally notified of the Mozambican court case against them. The case arises from the main proceedings over Mozambique’s so-called “hidden debts” scandal. Three of the defendants - Waldemar Fernando de Sousa and Joana Jacinto Matsombe, former directors of the Bank of Mozambique, and Ernesto Gove, the bank’s former governor - have already been notified by the Maputo City Judicial Court of the prosecution, Mediafax reported. Chang, the fourth defendant, has still not been notified, apparently because his documents still need to be translated from Portuguese into English. He has been indicted for violating budget laws, corruption, abuse of office, organised crime, embezzlement and money laundering, and is still in custody in South Africa, waiting to see if he will be extradited to Mozambique or the United States. The three defendants from the Bank of Mozambique have been indicted for abuse of office. The main proceedings have a total of 20 defendants, 19 of whom are in pre-trial detention.
With this new initiative, the attorney general’s office is seeking to convince the South African authorities that there is a legitimate case against Chang, so he should be sent back to Mozambique.

Medication rules relax, as violence forces Cabo Delgado clinics to close (AIM)
Managers of health clinics in Cabo Delgado province should allow patients suffering from long-term diseases access to drugs, even if they do not have their patient ID card, the provincial health director, Magid Sabune, has said. The relaxation of measures is in response to the closure of 37 clinics in the province’s districts of Quissanga, Macomia, Mocímboa da Praia and Muidumbe as a result of terrorist attacks, leaving people suffering from diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis without access to medication. “We also recommend that, instead of giving chronic patients enough medicines for just one month, they should give it for three months,” Sabuni said. Cabo Delgado province currently has 164,240 HIV and AIDS patients, of whom 100,150 are being treated with antiretrovirals, and 5,656 tuberculosis patients, of whom 3,611 are being treated. Sabuni also said that the outbreak of acute diarrhoea in the district of Namuno, which led to the death of six informal gold miners and the hospitalisation of another 37, was practically under control. Tests carried out at the site indicated that the outbreak was due to poor sanitation and drinking water, not cholera.

Man arrested for selling fake covid-19 tests (Lusa)
Police have arrested a man who was selling fake covid-19 tests with negative results, a spokesman for the police in Maputo city announced on Friday. Some fake tests to be sent to people who would have requested them for travel purposes were also seized, he said. The man has confessed to the crime, but another person who was working with him is now on the run and being sought, according to the spokesman.

Vietnamese jailed for smuggling rhino horns out of Mozambique (VnExpress)
A court in Vietnam has sentenced a Vietnamese man to six years’ imprisonment for smuggling rhino horns out of Mozambique. Nguyen Anh Duong was caught at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City in March of this year with 12 rhino horns in his luggage. He told the court that a Chinese acquaintance had paid him 8m dong ($345) to transport “rare goods” to Vietnam without telling him what they were, and that he had not checked them either. The sale and purchase of rhino horns is banned in Vietnam, where it is sought after for traditional medicine and thought to have near-miraculous powers to cure cancer.
This could be a sign of cooperation between Mozambique and Vietnam to stop smuggling, after Celso Correia, then minister of the environment visited Hanoi a couple of years ago.

ENH profits rose, but assets fell this year (Carta de Moçambique)
Profits at state-owned oil and gas company ENH have tripled from MZN515.8m in 2019 to MZN1.5bn ($20m) this year, according to the company’s annual accounts for the year ended 30 June. However, the value of its assets fell from MZN115.8bn to MZN81bn. ENH also reduced its liabilities from MZN102.5bn to MZN65bn. ENH’s auditor, Deloitte, pointed to the unpredictability of the covid-19 pandemic as an important factor in the profitability of the company in the near future.