Africa-Press – Mozambique. Tagir Ássimo Carimo has been found guilty of corruption during his tenure as president of the Pemba City Council. The Cabo Delgado court commuted the two-year prison sentence to the payment of a fine.
The Cabo Delgado court on Thursday (July 30) sentenced the former Pemba mayor, Tagir Assimo Carimo, to two years in prison for corruption during the eight years he was mayor of the provincial capital.
The Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) politician was provisionally elected president of the Municipal Council of Pemba in 2011. In 2014, he became mayor of Pemba and chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Municipalities of Mozambique.
Tagir Carimo will not be detained, his prison sentence having been commuted into a fine.
Reading the verdict, Judge Zacarias Napatima said that Carimo had violated his legal obligations in the exercise of his functions.
“The defendant, as a State employee, did not respect the laws that regulate the procedures to be observed in his duties and lacked respect due to the body of State powers – in this specific case, the Municipal Assembly – and to the instructions of the Minister of Economy and Finance,” Judge Napatima said.
Accusations against Carimo
According to DW Africa, Casimiro Chelele, the former mayor’s defence lawyer, does not rule out the possibility of appealing the sentence.
The public prosecutor accused Carimo of abuse of office or function, illicit enrichment, embezzlement, misapplication and use of false documents, adding that the irregularities betrayed signs of premeditation.
Among other irregularities, the indictment detailed vehicles being hired in a 50 million meticais transaction [the equivalent of €660,000], with funds disbursed by Banco Único without authorisation from the Municipal Assembly.
The public prosecutor also identified the fraudulent spending of 23 million meticais [more than €300,000 euros] in the purchase of vehicles. The money was sourced from a loan of 120 million meticais [about €1.6 million] taken out with Banco Millennium Bim.
