Africa-Press – Mozambique. The former director of Economic Intelligence of the Mozambican secret service said on Thursday that the Mozambican president, Filipe Nyusi, suggested issuing a guarantee of €733 million in favour of Ematum, the beneficiary company of the hidden debts.
“The coordinator of the operative command suggested the guarantee,” António Carlos do Rosário said when the Public Prosecutor was questioning him in the trial of the main case of the hidden debts.
At the time of contracting the hidden debts, Filipe Nyusi was the Operational Command of the Defence and Security Forces (FSD) coordinator because he was the defence minister.
Questioned about the fact that it was the then director-general of the State Intelligence and Security Service (SISE) and defendant Gregório Leão who asked for the issue, by letter, of the said guarantee, to the then finance minister, Manuel Chang, Rosário assured that this procedure complied with instructions given by Filipe Nyusi.
“That was the instruction from the coordinator of the operative command,” he emphasised.
Whether the instruction was verbal or written, the former director of SISE’s Economic Intelligence said that the then defence minister gave the guidance verbally.
“It was verbal. Our instructions were never written, given the nature of our activity,” he stressed, referring to the confidential nature of the matters in question.
António Carlos do Rosário said that it was also Filipe Nyusi’s idea for Ematum (Mozambican tuna company) to negotiate with Russian bank VTB Capital to mobilise US$350 million (€301 million) of the US$850 million (€733 million) it needed for its operation.
The choice of VTB came after Credit Suisse raised only $500 million of the said amount.
“The bank [VTB] was indicated to me by the coordinator of the operational command,” António Carlos do Rosário said.
Asked about the fact that the value of the financing contract for Ematum’s project was higher than the contract for the goods supplied to the company, Rosário said that the discrepancy was due to the rates charged by the banks.
In his statement on Wednesday, the defendant told the court that the Mozambican state used Ematum as “a vehicle” to purchase defence material.
The former SISE Economic Intelligence director suggested the court notify Filipe Nyusi to appear at the trial to answer his role as coordinator of the operative command.
The position of António Carlos do Rosário led Judge Efigénio Baptista to question the reason for only mentioning Filipe Nyusi, given that the operative command included other members.
In response, António Carlos do Rosário said that as a SISE officer, he had “every interest in protecting the then coordinator of the operative command and current head of state” and that the statements he was making in court were the result of the interrogation he was being subjected to.
“So much so that I am in prison, and it has never even come out in the press that I have done anything,” meaning, without going into details, that he said he never used information in his possession that he collected as an intelligence officer to defend himself.
The former director of Economic Intelligence at SISE and who was also director of the three companies that received money from the hidden debts, is accused of having received bribes worth US$8.9 million (7.6 million euros) for his role in the project to protect the Exclusive Economic Zone and the creation of the companies.
The Mozambican justice system accuses the 19 defendants in the main case of the hidden debts of having joined a “gang” and defrauded the Mozambican state of US$2.7 billion (2.28 billion euros) – a figure that is higher than the US$2.2 million so far known in the case – raised from international banks via guarantees provided by the government.
The hidden debts were contracted between 2013 and 2014 from the British subsidiaries of investment banks Credit Suisse and VTB by Mozambican state companies Proindicus, Ematum and MAM.
The loans were secretly endorsed by the Frelimo government, led by the President of the Republic at the time, Armando Guebuza, without the knowledge of parliament and the Administrative Court.
