Manuel Chang charged over Odebrecht bribes
Mozambique’s Central Office for the Fight against Corruption (GCCC) is bringing further corruption charges against former Finance Minister, Manuel Chang, this time in connection with bribes paid by the Brazilian construction company, Odebrecht, to secure the contract for building an international airport at Nacala, on the northern coast.
A Monday statement from the GCCC said that press reports in 2017 had alerted it to “undue payments” (the polite term for bribes) made by Odebrecht.
These payments were in connection, not only with the Nacala Industrial Free Zone (which includes the airport), but also the building of a new coal terminal in the port of Beira.
The subsequent GCCC investigations led it to issue four arrest warrants – two of these were for ministers, including Chang. On 31 August this year, Chang was formally charged with corruption, illicit participation in business, abuse of his office, and money laundering.
The GCCC statement did not name the other accused, but the second minister is believed to be former Transport Minister Paulo Zucula, who was detained in June 2019, and accused of taking bribes of 315,000 dollars, in connection with the construction of Nacala airport.
The GCCC also does not state how much Odebrecht paid in bribes. But an investigation into Odebrecht by the US Department of Justice concluded that the bribes paid in Mozambique amounted to 900,000 dollars.
Nothing has been proved against Zucula, and the Higher Appeals Court ordered his release in May 2021, after two years of preventive detention. His lawyers submitted a writ of habeas corpus, which the Appeals Court accepted.
Nacala International Airport, inaugurated by the then President, Armando Guebuza, in 2014, proved an expensive folly. The only air company with scheduled flights to Nacala is LAM (Mozambique Airlines).
It was claimed that half a million passengers a year would use Nacala. But no research had been done into whether such an airport was needed, or whether any international air companies wanted to fly to Nacala. The idea that airlines based in the Gulf would use Nacala as a hub for their African operations proved sorely misplaced.
The Maputo City Court has not yet set any date for Chang’s trial. This is because he is currently in Johannesburg, under South African police custody, in connection with a completely separate case, that of Mozambique’s “hidden debts”.
This is the scandal of over two billon dollars in loans obtained by three fraudulent Mozambican companies from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia in 2013 and 2014. The money was only lent because the Mozambican government, in the person of Manuel Chang, issued illicit loan guarantees, in violation of the budget law and of the Mozambican constitution.
Since the three companies have gone bankrupt, the Mozambican state becomes liable to repay the loans.
Both Mozambique and the United States have applied to the South African judicial authorities for the extradition of Chang. The US claims jurisdiction because the “hidden debts” scheme abused the US financial system, and US investors were among those swindled.
(AIM)
