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Former Minister 'Did Not Know' Loans for His Children Were Illegal
Maputo, Nov 19, 2009 (Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) --
Mozambique's former Transport Minister, Antonio Munguambe, on Wednesday admitted that he had requested a large loan from the publicly owned airports company, ADM, to pay school fees for his children studying in South Africa.
Munguambe was testifying before the Maputo city Court in a case where he and four others are accusing of looting funds and property from ADM.
Munguambe claimed that it was only recently that he learned that his children were not eligible for loans from companies that his ministry was supervising.
He had asked three public companies in the transport and communication area for the money. But the mobile phone company M-Cel, and the Mozambican National Communications Institute (INCM) knew perfectly well that such loans were illicit, and refused Munguambe's request.
The chairperson of the ADM board, Diodino Cambaza, accepted and authorised the transfer of 8,000 dollars from ADM to Munguambe's account. The arrangement was entirely verbal: no documents have been produced justifying the transfer.
"When I received the 8,000 dollars I did not think I was committing any illegal act", said Munguambe. "But when I discovered that my children did not have this right, I took the initiative of returning the money, thus repairing the damage done to the company".
But the money Munguambe needed for his children was not 8,000, but 33,000 dollars. The remaining 25,000 dollars came, not directly from the ADM coffers, but from the ADM Financial Director, Antenor Pereira, which allowed Munguambe to treat it as a personal loan.
As far as he was concerned, he owed Pereira, and not ADM, 25,000 dollars. However, this is the thinnest of disguises - for the money did indeed come from ADM, but simply passed through Pereira's account en route to Munguambe.
Munguambe also admitted that he had asked ADM to provide him with a vehicle (in addition to the protocol vehicle that all ministers receive). Cambaza obliged and gave him a brand new Audi A6.
When he was sacked as Minister (in March 2008), Munguambe asked Cambaza to let him keep the Audi until he found another job. Again, he claimed that once he discovered that the loan of the car was illegal, he returned it.
When Pereira was called to testify he confirmed to judge Dimas Marroa that his account had been used to channel the 25,000 dollars to Munguambe. He said he had allowed his account to be used at the request of Cambaza.
He also confirmed that ADM had financed the rehabilitation of the Central Party School in the southern city of Matola, belonging to the ruling Frelimo Party. Asked who in Frelimo had received the money, Pereira said that five million meticais (about 182,500 dollars) was paid directly to the contractor working on the building. The decision to fund Frelimo in this way had been taken by the Board of Directors.
He saw nothing odd about a state-owned company financing the ruling party. For Pereira, this was part of the "financial autonomy" of public companies.
A third of the accused, Antonio Bulande, the former head of Munguambe's office, confirmed that he too had benefitted from an ADM. He had received 15,000 dollars from ADM to pay for wedding expenses - but he assured the court that he had started to repay the money. To date he has repaid 19,500 meticais, which is about 712 dollars. He had not paid back more, he said, because of "the difficulties" he was experiencing.
Bulande also confirmed the testimony given the previous day by Delinda Matos, former general manager of the Mozambican Services Company (SMS), which is owned by ADM and Mozambique Airlines (LAM), that he had been employed by SMS on a salary of 1,100 dollars a month, which was later raised to 1,750 dollars a month.
He justified the rise by saying there had been "a mistake" when the salary was first fixed. But in any case this was money for nothing - Bulande was supposed to be legal advisor to SMS, but Matos could not recall him doing any legal work at all for the company. The money was only apparently an SMS salary - in reality it was ADM money chanelled through SMS.
The money for this fictitious job was paid directly into his account, and when it was late he would ring up Matos and demand to know what had happened. On those occasions she would tell him that ADM had not yet deposited his wages for that month.
SMS had no need for a legal adviser since it already had a contract for legal services with the company "Pimenta Dionisio e Advogados".
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