Mozambique indicts 10 more people in hidden debt scandal
Updated | By AFP
Mozambique has indicted 10 more people over a massive $2 billion secret loan scandal that plunged the country into its worst-ever financial crisis, the country's top state lawyer said Wednesday.
The latest indictments bring to 30 the number of defendants facing charges in the case.
Attorney General Beatriz Buchili told lawmakers that the new indictments included four foreigners and six Mozambicans.
Armando Guebuza Jr., son of the former president, was among those indicted last year. He headed the country’s secret services at the time.
The scheme involved state-guaranteed loans contracted between 2013 and 2015 by public enterprises ProIndicus and Mozambique Asset Management to buy a tuna-fishing fleet and surveillance ships.
An independent audit found that $500 million of the loans, which were deliberately hidden from the country's parliament and international donors, was diverted and remains unaccounted for.
The United States alleges that at least $200 million was spent on bribes and kickbacks, including $12 million for former finance minister Manuel Chang, who also signed off on the debt guarantees.
Chang was arrested in South Africa in December 2018 on a US extradition request for his alleged involvement in the loans.
The attorney-general decried a lack of cooperation, notably from Washington, with the investigations into the transnational crime involving global companies and financial institutions.
"The United States of America, despite many insistences, doesn't respond to our requests, thus hampering the investigations and the speed required, against all the principles of collaboration established by international conventions," Buchili said.
The revelations of the secret loans plunged Mozambique -- which relies on donor aid and is one of the world's poorest countries -- into the worst financial crisis in its history.
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