Secret debt
illegal, unconstitutional
Main purpose security, not fishing
Promoted by SISE
Intentionally
kept secret
Terrible
contract
It is not sure which is more damning, the report of the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPI) on the $2 billion secret debt, or the evidence given to it by high level witnesses defending themselves - notably former president Armando Guebuza, former Finance Minister Manuel Chang, and António Carlos do Rosário, the senior official of the intelligence and security service (Serviço de Informação e Segurança do Estado, SISE) who is head of the three companies, Ematum, Proindicus, and MAM.
Guebuza and António do Rosário both stressed that the main purpose of the loans was military and security, and not fishing. They mainly cited issues around costal protection, relating to piracy, the gas industry, fishing, immigration and smuggling. Guebuza also cited Renamo and other unidentified security threats, particularly electronic.
Under a still
secret Integrated Monitoring and Protection System for the Exclusive Economic
Zone (Sistema Integrado de Monitoria e de Proteccao da Zona Economica Exclusiva
em Mocambique) set up in 2013, the three companies were created as
"special purpose vehicles" that were owned by government (mainly
SISE) but could act independently of it. Proindicus was set up first (January
2013, $622 mn loan) to establish "integrated systems of aerial, spatial,
maritime, lake, river and terrestrial security." Then Ematum was set up
(August 2013, $850 mn loan) for coastal protection and tuna fishing, and
finally MAM (Mozambique Asset Management, April 2014, $535 mn loan) for
shipyards.





