Extreme corruption in Mozambique -When 500 million dollars just disappear
Transparency International denounces corruption, Mozambique is a blatant example. The country borrowed over two billion dollars for tuna trawlers. Half a billion was lost. There is already a prime suspect.
For Manuel Chang, Mozambique's former finance minister, it was supposed to be a short trip under the Arabian sun during the Christmas holidays. And everything went according to plan at the start from Maputo airport.
But then something came up: When changing trains at Johannesburg airport, Chang was asked to leave the transit area for a moment. As soon as he had entered South Africa, policemen arrested him. Now, weeks later, he is still in custody there.
Chang is accused of large-scale corruption, more precisely: conspiracy to commit financial fraud and money laundering. He himself is said to have received twelve million dollars to sign a huge credit agreement as minister in 2013, which the country then kept secret for two years.Chang denies any misconduct. But because the US judiciary wants to clear up the entire scandal surrounding the questionable loans of more than two billion dollars for Chang's impoverished homeland, it has requested his extradition.
In the new Tansparency International Corruption Report for 2018, Mozambique once again fell behind because of the Chang case. Within Africa, the country, which has been ruled by the former freedom movement Frelimo since 1975, lies on one of the lowest places.
500 million dollars, just gone
Chang and Mozambique is an example of how in some countries public funds actually end up in private pockets. The most audacious theft occurs where, as in Mozambique, Zimbabwe or Cameroon, for a long time a party or ruling family ruled without genuine democratic control.
According to the US authorities, Chang is a central figure in one of the biggest corruption scandals in Africa in recent years. Three former bankers of the Swiss financial group Credit Suisse (CS) are also accused in New York. The bank itself is not in the sights of the authorities.A commission of inquiry has so far found out that the bitterly poor country borrowed a total of two billion dollars from the Russian state bank VTB and the CS between 2013 and 2014.The money was actually to be spent on a tuna fishing fleet, patrol boats and coastal protection radars. However, there is no evidence at all of the use of 500 million dollars. Goods for which 700 million dollars were paid were actually worth much less.When Mozambique announced its initially hidden debts in 2016, the International Monetary Fund reacted angrily and stopped its aid payments. The result: a deep economic crisis.
Debts will be served again from 2021
In his distress, the country issued government bonds for another 700 million. In the meantime, Mozambique has declared that it will neither repay the two billion dollars in loans nor the government bonds. Maputo does not give hope to its donors until 2021, when revenues from newly discovered gas deposits will bring fresh money.According to US authorities, approximately 200 million dollars in bribes were paid in connection with the hidden loan. The "Financial Times" quotes from the US indictment in the Causa Chang an unnamed Mozambican official who said to a manager of the shipbuilder: "There will be participants whose interests have to be taken care of, such as the Minister of Defense, the Minister of the Interior, the Air Force and so on. In democratic countries like ours, people come and go, and everyone wants his or her part of the deal as long as he or she is in office."Defence Minister at that time was a certain Filipe Nyusi. Today he is head of Frelimo and president of Mozambique. He has promised enlightenment.
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