Bribery trial of ex-Mozambique Minister starts in US

Manuel Chang, the former Finance Minister in Mozambique, has gone on trial in the US over the so-called ‘tuna bond’ scandal which came to light in 2016. Africanews reports that Chang is charged with taking bribes to commit his country secretly to huge loans that prosecutors say were then looted. The loans were meant to buy a fleet of tuna fishing ships, but went bad, plunging Mozambique into a financial crisis when the government's $2bn in ‘hidden debt’ was uncovered in 2016. Prosecutors say huge portions of the loans went to bribes and kickbacks to bankers and government officials, including $7m to Chang himself. Chang ‘abused his authority to enrich himself through bribery, fraud and money laundering,’ Assistant US Attorney Peter Cooch said during opening statements last week in a federal court in Brooklyn. Change has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Defence lawyer Adam Ford told jurors there's no evidence that Chang agreed to take payoffs, or received a penny, in exchange for having Mozambique guarantee that the loans would be repaid. ‘Minister Chang signs these guarantees because that’s what his government wanted him to do,’ Ford said.

The scandal had a seismic impact on the country's economy, with experts estimating that it could ultimately cost Mozambique around $11bn or around 60% of its current GDP, the africanews report notes. Mozambique’s Government has reached out-of-court agreements with creditors in an attempt to pay down some of the debt. Last year, it paid $142m back to Credit Suisse – in cash and local currency bonds – to cover original loans of about $522m from the Switzerland-based banking giant, according to the World Bank. Mozambique also recently reached an agreement on a $220m settlement with Russia's VTB Bank and Portugal’s BCP Bank. The scandal has led to court action in Africa and Europe, as well as the US. In Mozambique, at least 10 people have been convicted and sentenced to prison over the scandal, including Ndambi Guebuza, the son of former Mozambican President Armando Guebuza. South African courts dismissed the Mozambican Government’s attempts to have Chang face charges there.