
Iskandar Safa, fundador e proprietário do grupo de empresas Privinvest (no centro)
Maputo, 30 Jan (AIM) – The Lebanese billionaire Iskandar Safa, founder and owner of the Privinvest group of companies, based in Lebanon and Abu Dhabi, and one of the main forces behind Mozambique’s “hidden debts” scandal, died on Monday.
Announcing his death, the director of the weekly “Valeurs Acteurs”, Tugdul Denis, said Safa had died of an unspecified “serious illness” surrounded by members of his family.
Safa purchased “Valeurs Acteurs” in 2015. It is a journal of the extreme right – making the friendship of senior Mozambican officials with Safa even more questionable.
Safa was born in 1955, and made much of his fortune in shipbuilding. His Privinvest group controlled shipyards in the French port of Cherbourg, Germany, Abu Dhabi and Greece.
Privinvest became notorious in Mozambique for its role in the “hidden debts”. This term refers to the illegal loans for over two billion US dollars, granted by the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia in 2013 and 2014, to three fraudulent companies – Proindicus, Ematum (Mozambique Tuna Company) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management) – all of them run by the Mozambican Intelligence and Security Service (SISE).
The loans were only granted because the Mozambican Finance Minister of the time, Manuel Chang, signed guarantees – which meant that, if the companies were unable to repay the loans, the Mozambican state would become liable for the entire amount.
As was entirely predictable, all three companies, after producing almost no revenue, went quickly bankrupt, and are currently being liquidated. The banks demanded their money back, and so what were once hidden loans became hidden debts.
Right from the start, Privinvest was deeply involved in negotiating the loans. One of Safa’s senior aides, Jean Boustani, offered large bribes to Mozambican officials and to Credit Suisse bankers. Three of the Credit Suisse staff admitted, in evidence to a New York court that they had taken bribes from Privinvest.
One peculiarity of this corrupt deal was that the banks did not send the two billion dollars to Mozambique – instead it went to Privinvest accounts, to pay for the assets that the three fake companies were buying from Privinvest.
An independent audit of Proindicus, Ematum and MAM in 2016-17 showed that Privinvest had massively overpriced the assets – such as fishing boats, patrol vessels and radar stations – that it was selling to Mozambique. The auditors put the over-invoicing at more than 700 million dollars, or a third of the entire fraud.
Furthermore, the assets were mostly useless. The fleet of Ematum vessels hardly ever put out to sea. They were “long liners”, but the hooks on the lines to catch tuna are baited with squid, and the appropriate species of squid is not found in Mozambican waters.
So the bait had to be imported from Latin America. The boats also had to be refitted before they could be granted Mozambican fishing licences.
Safa’s personal involvement with the Mozambican loans was shown when, in 2013 he accompanied the Mozambican and French presidents of the time, Armand Guebuza and Francois Hollande, to the Privinvest shipyard in Cherbourg, where the Ematum vessels were being built.
Safa’s death may have implications for the lawsuit under way in London, at which the Mozambican state is demanding compensation of 3.1 billion dollars from Privinvest and Safa.
Initially Mozambique had demanded 11 billion dollars from Safa’s companies. But, after reaching an out-of-court agreement with the Swiss group UBS, which now owns Credit Suisse, the Mozambican Attorney-General’s Office (PGR), dropped a substantial part of the claim against Privinvest.
A lawyer hired by the PGR in London, Jonathan Adkin, said the decision to reduce the claim was motivated by fears that Privinvest would not be able to pay.
Privinvest and Safa have tried, without success, to drag Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi onto the witness stand. The British judge hearing the case, Robin Knowles, ruled that Nyusi enjoys sovereign immunity as a sitting head of state, and so cannot be forced to give evidence in the London trial.
Safa’s death also means that he will not be appearing in any Mozambican court, either as an accused, or as a witness to the crimes committed by his Mozambican partners under the Guebuza regime. Whatever information Safa was carrying in his head has died with him
(AIM)
Pf/ (709)