Investigators conclude audit into funding scandal

Forensic investigators have concluded their audit into secret loans worth $2bn that the Mozambican Government secured that prompted the suspension of IMF and World Bank aid. Legalbrief reports that the scandal, which implicated the previous administration of President Armando Guebuza, sent the economy into a tailspin. This after Maputo took out huge secret loans between 2012 and 2014 to fund a coastal protection project. The discovery of the loans, received by state firms including Mozambique's state-owned fishing company EMATUM, prompted the IMF to block a major loan last year. A report on the News24 site notes that a commission of inquiry in December established that government violated the law when it failed to seek authorisation from the assembly. Investigators from New York-based firm Kroll reported their findings to Mozambican officials on Friday. ‘The country's chief prosecutor will proceed with the verification and analysis of the report,’ the prosecutor's office said in a statement. It added that the results of the probe will be released ‘as soon as possible’. The report notes that the scandal triggered the country’s worst financial crisis since the end of the civil war in 1992.