Fire quelled in Maputo Special Reserve

The fire that had raged since Wednesday (15) in the Maputo Special Reserve (REM), in Matutuine district, Maputo province, was put out yesterday, and the authorities were yesterday seeking to determine the size of the burned area and other damage.

“According to information from colleagues in the field, everything is under control”, assured the administrator of the conservation area, Miguel Gonçalves, in a phone contact with Notícias.

Asked about the possible causes of the fire, the administrator said that it was probably a dropped cigarette butt. “Yesterday (Wednesday) we worked a lot and it seemed that the fire had been subdued, but the information we had today(Thursday) is that there was another fire”, he said.

Miguel Gonçalves said that the survey of the affected area was underway, to determine the real causes and damage caused by the fire, as well as its magnitude, since there are several contributing factors,namely the fact that the grass, at this time of year, is dry and with greater ease of burning. This is the second fire to occur in the Maputo Special Reserve this year. The first one affected the reserve, especially pastures area, and did not damage wildlife.

 

Viral load undetected

About 80 per cent of patients undergoing Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART) in Maputo city have undetectable viral loads, according to a report in Thursday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”.   Addressing on Wednesday the opening session of a meeting in Maputo, the Executive Secretary of the National AIDS Council (CNCS), Francisco Mbofana, said the milestone encourages authorities to put emphasis on sexual education for girls to control transmission and new HIV infections. Mbofana declared that the reduction of gender inequalities, and sex education in schools, as well as at home, can reverse the current scenario.

In 2020, he said, 98,000 new infections by HIV/AIDS were recorded, of which 39,000 (40 per cent) were diagnosed among people, particularly girls, aged between 15 and 24. Maputo city recorded 3,000 new infections. He pointed out that there are lingering challenges in Maputo for eradicating the disease, since five per cent of the infected people know nothing about their HIV status, a situation that raises great concern.

 The Health and Social Welfare city councilor, Alice Abreu, said that in order to reach every patient who is HIV positive, the authorities have expanded medicine service delivery to the chemists in a partnership agreed in the past three months. The service, she added, will improve access to anti-retroviral treatment, expand the daily time to access medicines and outgrow the number of patients undergoing uninterrupted treatment. She also said that activities such as community testing, counseling, awareness and timely accession and retention in treatment will resume very soon.

 

Maputo’s Nautilus to close

Nautilus Pastelaria, located on the corner of Avenida 24 de Julho and Avenida Julius Nyerere in Maputo, will close its doors next Sunday (September 20), leaving 80 workers unemployed. Workers there say they were told less than a month ago, through a prior notice of the termination of the employment relationship between the parties. Although surprised at the management’s decision, the workers told ‘Carta’ that they were told they would be compensated according to length of service.

“When we got together to receive this information, we were all surprised. They say they would pay us compensation, but we are all worried because the coffee shop and the bakery will close this Sunday, and they have not spoken to us since we were handed the notice letters. So far, there has been no movement in relation to this month’s salaries, and we don’t know where to find the employers if they don’t honour their commitments, because they say they’re going to another office, but nobody knows where,” says one of the employees.

“We are practically in the process of moving, a lot is already being packed and they are taking it little by little. We don’t know where to, because the boss doesn’t say anything. To date, no information has been posted on the door to tell customers about the closing on Sunday. We don’t know what the reasons for the closure are, what they are about to do in this place, because information is scarce and nobody has told us anything concrete since they gave us the letters. We have colleagues who have worked here for over 22 years, and they are desperate because they are not sure if they will, in fact, be compensated,” another worker told our reporter.

Customers at the establishment reacted to the news with amazement. Yasmin Rajah, a resident of Bairro Central, told Carta that it was the first time she had heard that Nautilus was going to close. She says it is her favourite place, as, in addition to having coffee, she takes advantage of the space’s wifi to do her university work.

Cris Samamad, who said that Nautilus was the ideal place to do business, was dismayed to learn that the establishment was going to close, since that was where he always met clients of his real estate agency. Carta contacted Nautilus’ management to talk about the closure and the payment of compensation, but the management representative, who refused to identify herself, merely said that she “hadn’t heard anything about this closure yet”, which was why “we haven’t posted anything [on the matter]”. 

1.8 billion dollars needed for urban water

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Wednesday launched a programme to mobilise about 1.8 billion US dollars to finance the expansion of urban water systems so that they can brings clean drinking water to a further four million people in the next ten years.In addition to drinking water, the project includes sanitation infrastructures, which should be resilient to the effects of climate change.This programme was launched at a time when only 67 per cent of Mozambicans have access to clean water, despite the major investments in water supply made in recent years.Addressing the opening ceremony in Maputo of a conference of financing agencies for water supply, Nyusi said that the government also hopes to fast-track the attainment, by 2030, of several objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“The investment programme, estimated at 1.8 billion US dollars for the next 10 years represents a structured response to the challenges the country has been facing to expanding access to water,” Nyusi said.

The World Bank representative, Michel Matera, reaffirmed the Bank’s commitment to support the government to expand safe water access across the country. He pointed to the projects under way to increase water access and sanitation to urban areas, budgeted at 458 million US dollars. Matera encouraged the government’s Water Supply Investment and Assets Fund (FIPAG), which hosted the conference, to take advantage of the projects to consolidate the preparation of priority investments for the urban areas. “We are open to explore, in partnership with the government, opportunities to extend financial support to other priority areas of investment,” he added.The World Bank is supporting the government’s efforts to expand access to water to about 370,000 consumers in Pemba, Nacala, Tete, Moatize, Beira and Dondo budgeted at 165 million dollars.

INTERNATIONAL ARREST WARRANT FOR JEAN BOUSTANI

An international arrest warrant has been issued for the Lebanese businessman Jean Boustani, one of the key executives in the Abu Dhabi-based group, Privinvest, and is currently in the hands of Interpol, according to a report in Thursday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”. Boustani is wanted in connection with Mozambique’s greatest financial scandal, the “hidden debts”. This scheme, whereby three fraudulent, security-linked companies, Proindicus, Ematum (Mozambique Tuna Company) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management), obtained over 2.2 billion dollars in loans from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia, on the basis of illegal loan guarantees issued by the government of the time, led by then President Armando Guebuza, was largely orchestrated by Privinvest.

Privinvest was the main winner from the corrupt deal, since it became the sole contractor for the three companies. All the loan money was sent, not to the Maputo offices of the companies, but to Privinvest, which then provided Mozambique with vastly overpriced assets (such as fishing boats, patrol boats and radars). According to an independent audit of Proindicus, Ematum and MAM in 2017, Privinvest over-invoiced Mozambique by more than 700 million dollars. According to United States prosecutors investigating the scandal, at least 200 million dollars of the loan money was used to pay bribes and kickbacks. Boustani handled the bribes. The Maputo City Court, currently trying 19 people for their alleged role in the “hidden debts”, has heard this week of how Boustani arranged a bribe of 50 million dollars – 33 million for Ndambi Guebuza, the oldest son of former President Guebuza, and 8.5 million each to the shadowy business figures Teofilo Nhangumela and Bruno Langa.

Judicial sources contacted by “Noticias” said that Interpol is waiting for the best opportunity to serve the arrest warrant. This may not prove easy – Privinvest is well connected in official circles in Lebanon, and particularly in its operational base of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. The Privinvest Chief Executive Officer, Iskandar Safa, is a close friend of the Abu Dhabi royal family. The Mozambican Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) has repeatedly summoned Boustani to appear in Mozambique – first to provide information to the auditors from the company Kroll Associates, who were investigating the three fraudulent companies, and then to appear before preliminary hearings into an additional case arising from the “hidden debts” in which he is one of the accused. Boustani ignored every summons sent by the PGR. His current whereabouts are unknown.

US prosecutors did catch up with Boustani in 2019, and put him on trial in New York on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud and securities fraud. The American prosecutors could show, with a massive haul of intercepted emails and bank documentation, that Boustani was a key figure in massive bribery, paying off Credit Suisse bankers and Mozambican officials, including the then Finance Minister Manuel Chang.

Boustani made no attempt to deny the veracity of the documents. Instead he relied on clever lawyers arguing that, since the crimes did not take place in the United States, and Boustani had never set foot in the US before, he could not be guilty. This was a successful appeal to the jurors’ ignorance of US anti-corruption legislation, which does not depend on where the crime was committed. The Maputo City Court wants Boustani to testify as a witness in the current “hidden debts” trial, by video-conference, if he cannot attend in person.

State was injured in 2.2 billion dollars

Testifying for the second day, during the trial of 19 people charged with crimes arising from the scandal of Mozambique’s “hidden debts”, businessman Bruno Langa opted to keep his mouth shut. Interrogated by the Mozambique Bar Association (OAM), which is assisting the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Langa simply refused to answer any questions. The OAM asked him 27 questions, and to each of them Langa replied “I shall not answer the question”.

The OAM asked about his business training and experience: what was there in his experience which led the Abu Dhabi based group, Privinvest, to appoint him as a consultant on its project to provide protection to the Mozambican Exclusive Economic Zone?

The prosecution believe that Privinvest was interested in Langa, not because of any business acumen, but because of his personal contacts.

For Langa is a close friend of Ndambi Guebuza, the oldest son of former President, Armando Guebuza, and this connection was used to bring the Privinvest project to the notice of the then President. 

Langa signed his consultant’s contract with Privinvest in January 2012, and on 25 March 2013, he was paid what is politely called a “fee” of 8.5 million US dollars into the account he had opened at First Gulf Bank in Abi Dhabi. What services had Langa actually provided for Privinvest in the 14 months between January 2012 and March 2013?, asked the OAM. But answer came there none. The 8.5 million dollars entered Langa’s account just four days after the bank Credit Suisse had sent 327.9 million dollars to Privinvest. Asked to comment on this interesting coincidence, Langa was, of course, silent.

The Credit Suisse millions were money paid under the contract with Proindicus, the first of three fraudulent, security-related Mozambican companies that are at the heart of the “hidden debts” scandal. One of the peculiarities of this contract is that the money was not sent directly to Proindicus, but to Privinvest, which was the sole contractor for the three fraudulent companies. Privinvest than sent patrol boats and other assets to Mozambique which an independent audit later discovered had been grossly overvalued

The OAM asked Langa if he had paid any income tax on the money deposited in his Abu Dhabi account, or even declared this income to the Mozambican Tax Authority (AT). “Did you not feel you were involved in something that damaged Mozambique?”, the OAM asked. Would he pay any money back to the Mozambican state? To all these questions, the answers were a sepulchral silence. The judge, Efigenio Baptista, said that Langa was within his rights not to answer questions, “but when defendants do answer, they help the court take its decisions”.

He added that when it comes to sentencing, one of the mitigating factors that courts take into account is confession. A defendant who admits his crimes is unlikely to receive the maximum sentence, Baptista remarked. This did not persuade Langa to be much more forthcoming. Under questioning from the defence lawyers, he replied to most of them with the one word “no”. Did he know his fellow defendants? No. Had he formed a group with them? No. Did a certain email address belong to him?

No.

Applications for Sustenta 2021/2022 open

One year after financing was granted to nearly 300,000 farmers in eight provinces, and an increase was registered in the production of the main food crops in Mozambique, applications for the Sustenta National Program for the Integration of Family Agriculture in Value Chains, 2021/2022 agrarian campaign, began this week. 

Food production in the country increased from 14 million tons to 16 million during the 2020/2021 agrarian campaign, according to preliminary data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, as a result of the financing of technological packages to 291,241 Emerging Small Commercial Farmers (PACEs) and Small Farmers (PAs), combined with technical assistance. The increase in food production and cash crops also resulted in a significant increase in the income of 59,040 households. In rice production, for example, farmers’ incomes increased by 650 %; maize producers saw their incomes rise by 292%, and sunflower crop earnings increased by 248%.

After reaching 103 districts in the provinces of Niassa, Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Zambézia, Tete, Manica, Sofala and Gaza, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security plans to extend Sustenta funding to the entire country, on Monday, August 30, issuing public calls for Mozambicans wishing to boost agricultural production.

Any small farmer willing to farm an area between 1.5 to 9 hectares, must submit his application to the Extension Agent in his locality or through the PACE scheme, development company or industry in his region. Applicants for PACE must already cultivate an area equal to or greater than 10 hectares and submit their application to the District Service for Economic Activity in the region where they reside. Industries and companies seeking funding to boost the agrarian development that they are already carrying out must present their applications at the Provincial Services for Economic Activity in the areas where they operate or at the offices of the National Sustainable Development Fund (FNDS).

SAMIM

The SADC mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) derives its mandate from the decision of the SADC Summit, at its meeting held in the Republic of Mozambique on 23rd June,2021, to approve the deployment of a SADC Standby Force Rapid Deployment Capability for an initial period of three months. The initial period is subject to extension for a further period depending on the evolution of the operational situation on the ground. SAMIM forces were launched by SADC and the host nation on the 9th of August 2021 and have now achieved full operational capability as well as gaining some success.

The SAMIM is mandated to;

a) Support the Republic of Mozambique to combat acts of terrorism and violent extremism by neutralizing the threat and restoring security in order to create a secure environment;

b) Support the Republic of Mozambique to strengthen peace and maintain security through implementation of courses of action recommended by the Organ Troika Summit plus Mozambique held on 27 may 2021;

c) Support the Republic of Mozambique to restore law and order in affected areas of Cabo Delgado Province;

d) Provide air and maritime support in order to enhance the Forcas Armadas de Defesa de Mozambique (FADM) operational capabilities;

e) Provide logistics and training to enhance FADM capability to combat terrorism;

f) Provide support to the Government of the Republic of Mozambique, in collaboration with humanitarian agencies in the Republic of Mozambique, to continue providing humanitarian relief to the population affected by the terrorist activities, including the internally displaced persons (IDP’s).

Having been given the above mandate by the region and taking into account the bilateral agreements that exist between the host nation and other countries, SAMIM has been working with the host nation and other actors to achieve coordination. Coordination and cooperation with other actors in the area is of utmost importance in achieving synergy as all these stakeholders are driven by a common goal; a stable and secure Cabo Delgado Province.

Given the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in Cabo Delgado, where over 800 000 people have been internally displaced, SAMIM forces have actively engaged with non-military actors including state institutions as well as non-state actors such as the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) in Pemba for the purposes of coordination in preparation for future humanitarian interventions. SAMIM continues to engage UN OCHA in educating its forces about some of the challenges they may encounter in the mission area i.e. issues of human rights abuse and those relating to women and children.

To date, SAMIM has been conducting operations within its designated Area of Responsibility, in close coordination with FADM forces. As a result of this coordination, SAMIM forces raided an insurgent hideout in the general area of Muera, south of Mbau on Saturday 28 August 2021 where it captured one insurgent, recovered several items including vehicles, weapons and documents. The captured insurgent was subsequently handed over to FADM and the documents shared with other forces for intelligence exploitation.

On a somber note, SAMIM forces have recently lost two members due to accidents. A member from Botswana was on 29 July 2021 involved in a motor vehicle accident that claimed his life whilst a member from United Republic of Tanzania lost his life in an incident involving an aircraft on 28 august 2021. Memorial service events were held in honour of these two fallen heroes and their bodies have been repatriated to their respective countries. Our deepest condolences go to their families, friends and their respective countries. SAMIM would like to assure the people of Mozambique and SADC of a collective commitment to achieving a peaceful, stable and secure Cabo Delgado as well as the entire country of Mozambique.

Elizabeth II recognises young Mozambican social

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, as Head of the Commonwealth, has today, 3 September, recognised Marta Vânia Uetela, representing Mozambique, as the 193rd Commonwealth Point of Light in honour of her exceptional voluntary service developing a prosthesis made from recycled plastics to sustainably benefit people with disabilities. Marta, aged 25, is the founder of BioMec, an organisation that produces high performance prostheses made of recycled plastic from the ocean.

After seeing the difficulties a friend faced in acquiring a prosthesis, Marta developed an artificial leg using the plastic residuals from six bottles collected from the sea. Realising she could produce further high-performing protheses which could not only help lift people’s lives by increasing access to affordable artificial limbs, but also promote sustainability and reduce plastic pollution by repurposing material, Marta launched her own start-up. ‘BioMec’ is now manufacturing further prostheses custom-made for individuals based on their ability needs, using a technology which increases compatibility between the residual limb and the prosthesis to create comfort.

As part of the legacy of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London 2018, Her Majesty The Queen – as Head of the Commonwealth – is thanking inspirational volunteers across the 54 Commonwealth nations for the difference they are making in their communities and beyond, by recognising one volunteer from each Commonwealth country every week. By sharing these stories of service, the Commonwealth Points of Light awards celebrate inspirational acts of volunteering across the Commonwealth and help inspire others to make their own contribution to tackling some of the greatest social challenges of our time.

Marta said:

“It is with great enthusiasm that I receive the Commonwealth Points of Light award, thank you for sharing enthusiasm for the initiative and give motivation. I hope we can make people with mobility challenges have a life without limitations, full of possibilities and self-esteem.”

 

NneNne Iwuji-Eme, UK High Commissioner in Mozambique, said:

‘’It is truly a pleasure to present this Commonwealth Points of Light award to Marta Uetela on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth ||. Her inspiring work with the development of affordable prostheses helps improve and transform people’s quality of life, opening doors for dreams to come true. The impact of Marta’s work goes further still as she combines design with sustainability by using plastic collected from the ocean as raw material for her prostheses. I am amazed by her work and very happy that Marta is the fourth Mozambican to receive the Points of Light Award. Congratulations, Marta. You are a true inspiration!’’

The Commonwealth is a diverse community of 54 nations that work together to promote prosperity, democracy and peace. The Heads of Government meeting brought together leaders from all the 54 Member countries to reaffirm common values, address shared global challenges and agree how to work to create a better future for all citizens, especially young people. Voluntary service is a vital part of this agenda, which is why Her Majesty The Queen has chosen to recognise outstanding volunteers across the Commonwealth in this special way.

 

Edmilsa Governo breaks African record

Mozambican Paralympic athlete Edmilsa Governo set a new African record at the women’s 400 metres T13 event in Tokyo this Thursday.

Edmilsa Governo covered the 400m distance in 55.50 seconds yesterday, in the second series of the Paralympic Games taking place in Tokyo, Japan. With this mark, the Mozambican won her series and ensured her presence in the final of the race, scheduled for Saturday.