DISTRICT ADMINISTRATOR FACES CORRUPTION CHARGES

Mozambique’s Central Office for the Fight against Corruption (GCCC) has charged the administrator and the permanent secretary of one of the districts of the northern province of Nampula of embezzling 1.1 million meticais (about 36,000 US dollars).Addressing a Maputo press briefing, the GCCC spokesperson, Bernardo Duce, did not reveal the names of the suspects, or the district concerned. He said the two claimed that the money had covered expenditure concerning travel on duty inside and outside the district.“During the investigation, the administrator and the permanent secretary could not present any documents justifying their claims”, said Duce. “For this reason, they have been charged and presented to a magistrate”. He said that in February, the GCCC processed 47 cases, four of which have been sent to courts for trial. No corruption trials were held in February (which is part of the judicial holidays when courts do not hear any new cases). There were also no reports of the arrests of any allegedly corrupt officials. One of the cases that has been charged concerns a former director of district education, youth and technology services, in the central province of Zambezia who, on learning that a teacher was ill, set up a mechanism to steal his wages. He managed to steal 105,000 meticais that belonged to the teacher before he was found out and sacked.Another case concerns an official in the Inhambane provincial government who demanded bribes of 8,200 meticais from two people who were seeking teaching jobs. Meanwhile, the national director of the Legal Aid Institute (IPAJ), Justino Tovela, has announced that ten members of the Institute have been caught extorting money from clients. IPAJ is supposed to provide legal services to people who cannot afford to pay for a lawyer, but several of its members were found to be making illicit charges for work that should be free of charge.Tovela said the ten have been suspended from duty and will be taken to court.