London, 1 Nov (AIM) – The High Court in London has heard from Jean Boustani, a senior salesman for the Abu Dhabi based group Privinvest that emails he sent to his boss, Iskandar Safa, which included details of illicit payments to be made to former Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang, were not intended for Safa to read but purely because it was a convenient method for Boustani to print out his documents.
In this account, if Boustani was in Safa’s office and wanted to print a document from his laptop, he would simply email Safa’s Logistics International address and then use an office computer to print it out.
This would neatly explain why all of the possibly incriminating emails sent by Boustani to the Logistics International address detailing the development of the supply contracts that later became the centre of what is known as the case of the “hidden debts” were never read by the owner of the shipbuilding company.
The case relates to loans of over two billion US dollars made in 2013 and 2014 to three fraudulent Mozambican security-linked companies (Proindicus, Ematum, and MAM) by the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia.
Some of these loans were syndicated, meaning that they were offered out to other lending institutions such as the Portuguese bank BCP. All the money from these loans went, not to Mozambique, but directly to Privinvest immediately after the signing of the supply contracts.
In theory, the loans were for a tuna fishing fleet, shipyards, and maritime security. But none of these ventures ever took off and soon became bankrupt. However, that was far from the end of the story as the project’s debts were backed by illegal state guarantees, signed by Minister Chang, meaning that the government became responsible for paying off these debts.
In London, the Mozambican government is arguing that the three projects only took off because of the bribery of some of the decision-makers in the lender banks and senior government officials.
In his cross-examination, Boustani constantly claimed that neither he nor Privinvest had ever paid a bribe. He explained that the payments to the top Mozambican officials were “investments” in the country and were only made after the supply contracts had been signed.
Other payments to Mozambicans describing themselves as “consultants”, such as Teófilo Nhangumele and Bruno Langa, were “success fees” following the signing of the supply contracts. He stressed, as Safa had last week in Court, that no “investments” were made on a quid pro quo basis.
It is worth noting that Boustani admitted that most of the payments were indeed made but denied that any payment was sent to the son of the then Mozambican president, Armando Guebuza. He became quite agitated when he said that a forensic search of the bank account of Ndambi Guebuza in the United Arab Emirates showed a zero balance since the day it was opened.
Ndambi Guebuza was sentenced in Maputo in December last year to twelve years in prison for receiving 33 million dollars from Privinvest as part of this corrupt scheme.
Boustani went to great lengths to distance himself from Safa and claimed that he had the authority to ask for the payments to be made for “investments”. Indeed, Safa was far too busy to involve himself in decisions such as who should get an introductory fee of a million dollars for putting Makram Abboud, a senior banker at VTB, in touch with Privinvest.
In addition, Boustani argued that he had no idea why Privinvest Chief Financial Officer Najib Allam had recorded the “investments” to senior officials such as Chang in spreadsheets devoted to the Proindicus, Mam, and Ematum projects.
He saved his greatest ire for consultant Teófilo Nhangumele, the man who had written to him asking for “fifty million chickens” to pay people in Mozambique. In Court in London, Boustani called him “a liar, a charlatan”, and “a total joke”.
Despite this, Nhangumele accompanied official delegations to Privinvest meetings and received 8.5 million US dollars in bribes (politely referred to as “consultancy fees”) from the shipbuilders. Lawyers representing Mozambique argue that there is sufficient evidence that these “chickens” were dollars paid to Mozambicans to ensure that the deals, which were detrimental to Mozambique, went ahead.
Mozambique is seeking 3.1 billion US dollars from Privinvest and Safa for the “horrendous damage” caused to the country’s economy. In addition, Mozambique is seeking to cancel debts held by the Russian-linked banks VTB Capital and VTB Bank (Europe), and the Portuguese bank BCP. The trial at the Commercial Court had been delayed while Mozambique reached an agreement with the main lender, Credit Suisse.
According to Mozambique’s lawyer, Joe Smouha, Credit Suisse has waived an outstanding debt of around 450 million dollars. This deal also involved an agreement with eight banks that had participated in the Proindicus syndicated loan.
Privinvest argues that these were good projects seeking to boost the country’s economy and protect the nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone, arguments that were comprehensively destroyed by expert witnesses during the trial in Maputo held from 2020 to 2022.
(AIM)
jhu/pf (852)
