Africa-Press – Mozambique. The former director of economic intelligence in Mozambique’s security service, SISE, Antonio Carlos do Rosario, after ten days of testimony before the Maputo City Court, once again accused unnamed members of the current Mozambican government of ”sabotaging” the three fraudulent companies he had chaired – Proindicus, Ematum (Mozambique Tune Company) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management).
His testimony seemed to have been coordinated with the Abu Dhabi based group, Privinvest, which was the sole contractor for the three companies and sold them fishing boats, patrol vessels, radars and other assets at grossly inflated prices.
Earlier this week Privinvest issued a press release containing a virulent attack against President Filipe Nyusi. It claimed that Nyusi “was at the heart of the creation and the subsequent sabotaging of the Projects in Mozambique”.
This is exactly the same claim made by Rosario – except that Rosario blames the “sabotage” on Ministers close to Nyusi rather than Nyusi himself.
Prior to Nyusi taking office in January 2015, both Rosario and Privinvest claim that the three companies were viable – although the independent audit undertaken in early 2017 showed that none of them were bringing in any significant revenue.
Rosario claimed that everything done with regard to the projects was authorised by Nyusi, who was then Defence Minister and coordinator of the Operational Command of the Defence and Security Forces. The story is absurd because above Nyusi was the Commander-in-Chief, the then President Armando Guebuza.
Rosario was careful to absolve Guebuza of any guilt, and on Thursday even said Guebuza knew nothing about the creation of Ematum, until the company had been set up and the Ematum bonds were being sold on the European bond market. “The Commander-in-
Chief had no obligation to know about it”, said Rosario.
On Friday, under friendly questioning from his lawyer, Isalcio Mahanjane, Rosario threw out one conspiracy theory after another.
He claimed that the auditors from the company Kroll, which discovered how much Privinvest had over-invoiced the Mozambican companies (over 700 million dollars) “wanted what happened in Brazil, Iraq, Libya and South Africa to happen in Mozambique too”. He did not explain in what way Brazil or South Africa are remotely comparable to war ruined states such as Iraq.
Rosario repeatedly attacked the western donors whom he believed were behind the Kroll audit. “They want to sell us a narrative on the surface, while they continue to gnaw away at us underground”, he said.
Every question by Mahanjane became an excuse for a political speech – until judge Efigenio Baptista, intervened to point out that none of Rosario’s claims had anything to do with the charges he is facing (such as money laundering and embezzlement). He warned that he would not accept any more speeches that had nothing to do with the subject matter of the trial. “This is not a debate”, Baptista stressed.
Rosario paid little attention, and launched an attack on unnamed European countries who were stealing Mozambican resources, and using the “hidden debts” as an excuse “to cut off our legs and keep us in dependency”.
Mozambique was being taken over by bandits, he alleged. “Bandits are using our institutions”, he declared. ”The bandits should be exposed and neutralized”.
Rosario shifted onto metaphysical ground when he proclaimed that “in the fight between good and evil, evil only wins when good gives up”. He clearly saw himself as a representative of “good” and proclaimed his belief in God and in the muslim faith.
As his testimony drew to its close, he claimed that the objective of the forces behind the Kroll audit “was to finish off Frelimo”, and took a final shot at the government. “There are Ministers who use Nyusi’s name for their own subversive purposes”, he claimed – without, of course, naming any of them.
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