Government to audit airline over alleged graft

The Mozambican Government is to conduct a forensic audit of the accounts of flag carrier Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) for the past 10 years, to be completed within six months, reports the Club of Mozambique. A source, who confirmed the audit, said it would be necessary to ‘reduce the number of employees’ at the flag carrier, currently around 800, given its reduced fleet of only four aircraft at present. President Daniel Chapo last month said there are ‘foxes and corrupt people’ within the state-owned LAM, with ‘conflicts of interest’ that are preventing the restructuring of the company. Chapo added that it was in the interests of these people that LAM ‘continues to lease aircraft because they earn commissions from aircraft leasing’. On 5 February, the government authorised the sale of 91% of the state’s stake in LAM to state-owned companies, indicating that the proceeds would be used to purchase eight aircraft. Chapo stated that, in the context of the process relating to the acquisition of the three aircraft, ‘people left Mozambique with money from the new shareholders and spent 15 days in Europe inspecting aircraft, only to return to Mozambique and say that they had not been able to inspect a single aircraft, which makes no sense and is illogical’. ‘When we discovered that there was a den of corrupt people within our company (…) we decided to cancel the tender, restructure the company and clean it up with competent people who want to work for the Mozambican people,’ he concluded.