{"id":9311,"date":"2021-11-22T16:33:06","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T16:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/?p=9311"},"modified":"2021-11-22T16:02:15","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T16:02:15","slug":"hidden-debts-trial-19-november-2021-aim-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/hidden-debts-trial-19-november-2021-aim-report","title":{"rendered":"Hidden debts trial: 19 November 2021 \u2013 AIM report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mozambique. <\/strong><\/span>Joana Matsombe, a former director of the Bank of Mozambique, on Friday admitted that she had broken the foreign exchange law regulations when, in 2014, she had authorised the 850 million dollar loan from Credit Suisse to the Mozambique Tuna Company (Ematum), but justified her behavior partly on the grounds that she trusted the other state officials involved, and partly because, if she hadn\u2019t signed the authorization, she would have lost her job.<\/p>\n

At the time Matsombe was the third most important officer in the bank, behind only the governor, Ernesto Gove, and the deputy governor, Antonio Pinto de Abreu. On the day the Ematum dossier landed on her desk, both Gove and Abreu were absent, and so she had to decide whether to authorise the loan.<\/p>\n

Matsombe was giving evidence to the Maputo City court in the case where 19 people are facing charges in connection with Ematum and two other fraudulent companies, Proindicus and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management).<\/p>\n

Mozambique\u2019s foreign exchange law regulations state that any foreign loan to a Mozambican private company must be authorized by the Bank of Mozambique, and, although their shareholders are all state bodies, Proindicus, Ematum and MAM were set up legally as private companies.<\/p>\n

Perhaps whoever had that bright idea did not read the law carefully. For Article 83 of the regulations of the foreign exchange law states explicitly that the Bank of Mozambique may not authorize foreign loans to any private company in cases where the loans will be repaid with resort to a state guarantee.<\/p>\n

All two billion dollars of loans to Proindicus, Ematum and MAM depended on guarantees issued by the government of the then President Armando Guebuza. Had it obeyed, the law, the Bank of Mozambique would have rejected all of them.<\/p>\n

But for Matsombe, the Mozambican state is above the law. \u201cThe state is sovereign, and it is above all of us, including the Bank of Mozambique\u201d, she told the court. \u201cThe Ministry of Finance is above the central bank\u201d.<\/p>\n

She admitted that, \u201cunder normal circumstances, I should not have signed the authorization. But I was under pressure. I was told it was urgent\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Ematum loan dossier ws stamped with the words \u201cconfidential\u201d and \u201curgent\u201d and a fellow member of the Bank of Mozambique board, Waldemar de Sousa, insisted with her on the urgency of the bank\u2019s authorization.<\/p>\n

Matsombe claimed that she had never read the contract between Ematum and Credit Suisse, so she may not have known that it was Credit Suisse that was insisting on urgent authorisation. One of the prior conditions for Credit Suisse granting the loan was authorisation by the Bank of Mozambique.<\/p>\n

She said she did not need to read the contract because other central bank officials, who answered to her, had read all the documents, and gave opinions in favour of authorising the loan.<\/p>\n

Matsombe said the request was so irregular that it should never have entered the bank at all. But the financial and supply contracts had already been signed, and Finance Minister Manuel Chang had already signed the state guarantee for the loan, \u201cso it was practically a fait accompli\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing my duty to the State\u201d, she added, but to cover herself, when she signed the authorization, she added that the Governor should ratify it on his return,<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Sheila Marrengula asked what was the legal basis for signing the authorization, since the foreign exchange law clearly ruled out such authorisation. She asked the same question repeatedly, and an increasingly flustered Matsombe failed to answer. \u201cHow could I oppose it? I had no way to reject it\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

The demand for authorization came from \u201chigher authorities\u201d, she claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat higher authorities?\u201d, asked Marrengula.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no idea\u201d, replied Matsombe. \u201cI only know that the document that landed on my desk was marked \u2018confidential\u2019 and \u2018urgent\u2019. It was a state secret, and I couldn\u2019t have done anything else, unless I wanted to lose my job\u201d.<\/p>\n

Marrengula noted that Matsombe had simply endorsed the opinions of her colleagues, who had given Ematum the green light.<\/p>\n

\u201cI trusted their opinions\u201d, Matsombe said. \u201cWhen my colleagues said it\u2019s a State project, what else could I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re saying it wasn\u2019t a question of the law at all, but you just had no alternative?\u201d, asked Judge Efigenio Baptista,<\/p>\n

\u201cYes\u201d, she replied, before slandering every honest worker in the Mozambican state, by adding that any other state employee \u201cwould have done the same\u201d.<\/p>\n

There was a chain of command in the central bank. The Ematum file passed through at least three hands before it reached Matsombe, and all of them gave a positive opinion. Had any one of the bank officials shown the slightest integrity and demanded to follow the law rather than illicit instructions from faceless \u201chigher authorities\u201d, then the whole corrupt scheme would have collapsed, and there would be no hidden debts.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Mozambique<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mozambique. Joana Matsombe, a former director of the Bank of Mozambique, on Friday admitted that she had broken the foreign exchange law regulations when, in 2014, she had authorised the 850 million dollar loan from Credit Suisse to the Mozambique Tuna Company (Ematum), but justified her behavior partly on the grounds that she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":9309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,8,16],"tags":[233,281,283],"class_list":["post-9311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-mozambique","tag-mozambique"],"yoast_head":"\nHidden debts trial: 19 November 2021 \u2013 AIM report - Mozambique<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Joana Matsombe, a former director of the Bank of Mozambique, on Friday admitted that she had broken the foreign exchange ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/hidden-debts-trial-19-november-2021-aim-report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hidden debts trial: 19 November 2021 \u2013 AIM report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Joana Matsombe, a former director of the Bank of Mozambique, on Friday admitted that she had broken the foreign exchange ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/hidden-debts-trial-19-november-2021-aim-report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mozambique\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-11-22T16:33:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/sites\/64\/2021\/11\/img-619bbef3f0cd1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"478\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/hidden-debts-trial-19-november-2021-aim-report#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/hidden-debts-trial-19-november-2021-aim-report\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Hidden debts trial: 19 November 2021 \u2013 AIM report\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-22T16:33:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/hidden-debts-trial-19-november-2021-aim-report\"},\"wordCount\":837,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/hidden-debts-trial-19-november-2021-aim-report#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/sites\/64\/2021\/11\/img-619bbef3f0cd1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Mozambique\",\"Mozambique\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"files\",\"homepage-english\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/hidden-debts-trial-19-november-2021-aim-report#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/hidden-debts-trial-19-november-2021-aim-report\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mozambique\/all-news\/hidden-debts-trial-19-november-2021-aim-report\",\"name\":\"Hidden debts trial: 19 November 2021 \u2013 AIM report - 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