Africa-Press – Mozambique. Khessaujee Pulchand, one of the 19 defendants in Mozambique’s “hidden debts” trial, said he opened bank accounts for operations he knew nothing about, because “I was following orders”.
On Tuesday morning, he told the Maputo City Court that in 2004 he had opened an account in the country’s largest commercial bank, the Millennium-BIM, on the instructions of his employers, the owners of the Africambios foreign exchange bureau.
But in the afternoon session, questioned by the Mozambique Bar Association (OAM), which is assisting the Public Prosecutor’s Office, he said he had opened accounts at three other banks – the BCI (Commercial and Investment Bank), Barclays and Standard. He could not remember the dates on which he had opened these accounts, but in all cases he was complying with instructions from the Africambios management.
Initially Pulchand had hoped that Africambios would use the BIM account to pay his wages. But no – throughout the years that he worked at Africambios (from 2004 to 2018), his wages were always paid in cash. The accounts he had opened in commercial banks were used as part of the Africambios money changing operations.
Pulchand said that to this day he has not opened an account of his own in any bank. He regarded the accounts opened in his name as, in reality, owned by Africambios. He never deposited any money of his own in the accounts and only signed cheques as and when instructed by the Africambios management.
“Did you ever express any discomfort at these arrangements?”, the OAM asked. “Never”, he replied.
Asked why he had opened the accounts, Pulchand said “because I was obeying orders”.
Asked what benefits he had gained from the accounts, he replied “none”. As for the benefits for Africambios, “I don’t know”, he said.
The only account of his own he ever had, was a student account at university, where he was studying electrical engineering, and that account was used exclusively to buy books and other study materials.
Pulchand said he never used the bank accounts, “because I felt they did not belong to me”.
The prosecution investigation of the Millennium-BIM account set up in Pulchand’s name showed that over 359.4 million meticais (about 5.6 million US dollars) flowed through it between January 2013 and June 2018. It seems that no similar analysis has yet been made of the other accounts, to see how much money they laundered.
