Maputo, 2 May (AIM) – The Mozambican Higher Council of the Judicial Magistracy (CSMJ), the disciplinary body for judges, has dismissed Noé Zimpinga as judge of the Nacala-Port city court, after he was found to have taken bribes in the pigeon pea export scandal.
The CSMJ found that Zimpinga took bribes in the long-running scandal, which involved the Royal Group conglomerate and the Indian ETG Group in a legal dispute over pigeon pea exports.
Zimpinga was the subject of a complaint which was filed, not only with the CSMJ, but also with the Higher Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and with the Supreme Court back in 2023, and the CSMJ has been investigating him for even longer.
He is deeply involved in the scandal, in which the Royal Group was working with corrupt judges, prosecutors and customs officials, apparently enjoying political cover from senior members of the ruling Frelimo party, in a determined drive to control the export market for pigeon peas and other grains from the port of Nacala.
Zimpinga was found to have ignored a demand from the Attorney-General’s Office that he should withdraw the court order which allowed police to storm the warehouses of the Royal Group’s competitor, ETG, in December 2023 and seize stocks of agricultural goods worth 70 million US dollars, which the Royal Group then began exporting.
The CSMJ found that the court order was granted by Zimpinga in exchange for bribes. But so powerful were the Royal Group’s friends that, since 2023, the complaint has not made any progress. The situation was only unblocked by intervention from the top – when ETG raised its complaints with the government of India, the market for most of Mozambique’s pigeon peas. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi then raised the matter with the former Mozambican president, Filipe Nyusi.
The latest CSMJ statement declared it concluded that “Judge Noé Zimpinga, the criminal investigating judge at the Nacala Law Court, ordered the seizure of 42,000 tonnes of products such as maize, pigeon peas and rice under circumstances in which the preventive seizure had no legal basis”.
“The defendant ordered the seizure of the cargo even though the Attorney-General’s Office had ordered the criminal case to be closed”, the CSMJ said.
According to the Zitamar News Service, João Sérgio Taimo, the prosecutor involved in the decision to arrest an ETG employee in December 2023, an arrest which the CSMJ has ruled was unlawful, has also just been removed from office.
Zitamar links the sacking of Zimpinga to other recent changes. In April, President Daniel Chapo dismissed Elisa Zacarias as head of the Tax Authority, followed by Taurai Tsama, head of Mozambique Customs. Possibly, Chapo is trying to clean up the tax, customs and export sectors.
The CSMJ also decided to sack two other judges, namely, Seguei da Costa, based in the northern province of Nampula, and Timóteo Chemai, who worked in the central province of Manica.
“It was proved that Da Costa had ordered the arrest of a defendant for refusing to sign a notification addressed to her lawyer. This conduct violated the judge’s special duty to carry out his function seriously”, says the note.
The document also explains that Chemai was dismissed following a disciplinary procedure which proved that he charged illegal amounts of money – in other words, a bribe – to release a citizen detained in Manica Prison, even after he had complied with all the procedures for his release.
“The victim has confirmed the illicit collection of the money by the Director of the Manica Penitentiary, in collusion with the accused judge”, reads the CSMJ note.
(AIM)
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