The trial began in Maputo on Tuesday of the former director of the Mozambican government’s Date Processing Centre (CPD), Orlando Come, accused of the theft of about 4.6 million meticais (about 128,000 US dollars, at current exchange rates) of public funds.Come faces charges of payment of undue remuneration, abuse of trust, and abuse of his position. Sitting beside him in the dock is the former head of administration and finance at the CPD, Manuel Vilankulos, charged with accepting illegal orders given by Come.According to the charge sheet, read out by judge Fernando Bila, Come improperly used a Visa credit card issued by the CPD to cover trips abroad and “entertainment expenses”. The credit card initially had a limit of 100,000 meticais, but could be recharged whenever Come liked.Come used the card, even when he received mission allowances from the CPD. Hence the CPD was paying twice over for Come’s trips. According to the prosecution he spent 1.3 million meticais to pay allowances and travel costs. The trips abroad were supposedly for training purposes, or to represent the CPD at business meetings.Come approved the issue of his own credit card, after a decision taken at a meeting of the Board of Directors which he chaired. There was no requirement to produce receipts for the credit card expenditure. In addition, Come transferred 1.1 million meticais from CPD bank accounts to his personal accounts.The prosecution also accused Come of using CPD funds to rent an apartment, for 116,000 meticais from a woman named Isabel Cristina Filipe – but the CPD never used the apartment.The prosecution also alleges that Come paid school fees for his daughter and niece, totalling 45,900 meticais, out of CPD funds, and of spending 37,900 meticais of CPD money to repair his daughter’s car.Asked to explain these charges, Come said that the CPD had a Strategic Plan which included a staff training component. This implied granting scholarships for courses inside and outside the country from which he too benefited. Apart from the scholarships, expenses were paid, and these were included on the CPD’s annual budget, sent to the Ministry of Finance for approval.He thought it quite legitimate to use the credit card to pay for lunches and dinners “for my guests”. He admitted that he had sometimes exceeded the 100,000 meticais limit “out of mere professional necessity”.As for the transfers to his account, Come said these were back wages owing to him from his previous post as National Director of Statistics. From 1992 to 1997 he was both head of the CPD and National Director of Statistics, He saw nothing wrong in claiming a full wage packet for both supposedly full-time jobs. For each job he was receiving a monthly salary of around 79,000 meticais.After five years as director of statistics, one of the quirks of the Mozambican public sector wage system allowed Come to claim the category of National Director and go on claiming the “historic salary” of 79,000 meticais, even after he had definitively left the National Statistics Institute (INE).Come said that in 2005, Finance Minister Manuel Chang sent a letter to the CPD informing it that from then on, the CPD should pay Come’s “historic salary”. So Come would have two salaries, both of them very large by Mozambican standards, paid by the CPD. ”The letter reached the CPD a month after the Finance Ministry had stopped paying the salary of national director to which I was entitled, and the CPD took responsibility for these payments”, said Come. “We are talking about three or four months of back wages”. But the “historic salary” was only paid when the CPD had enough money – Come recognised that the institution was operating “at its financial limit”.“The transfers were to regularise the payments of the salary of a national director, which were delayed”, he said.As for the unused flat, Come said the idea had been to use it to accommodate a team of Brazilian technicians who would come to Mozambique to install a new computer system. The CPD, he added, was developing a partnership with a Brazilian computer company. That company was supposed o pay for the air tickets and accommodation of the Brazilian team.But the team never turned up, and the rent had already been paid for five years. “This is a risk you run in business of this kind”, claimed Come.As for using CPD money to pay his relatives’ school fees, Come said his secretary had taken the decision to pay the fees when he was out of the country. He had agreed, and the money was subsequently reimbursed, by monthly discounts of 5,000 meticais from his salary.As for the car, supposedly belonging to his daughter, Come claimed that at the time his daughter had been too young to drive. The car in question, he said, belonged to the company Express Rent-a-Car. The CPD had hired it and it suffered an accident. Come admitted he had not seen the damaged car, and just signed a cheque for the repairs. Come admitted that he had issued a cheque for 80,000 meticais, drawn on CPD funds, in the name of his elder brother, without consulting the CPD Board. He claimed that subsequently the money had been reimbursed.Come was arrested on 6 January 2009, on the orders of the Maputo City branch of the public prosecutor’s office. He was held in a Maputo jail for 19 months, until the Supreme Court in August ordered his release on bail of 410,000 meticais.The trial was interrupted by a power cut, before the Court could take evidence from Manuel Vilankulos. It will resume on Thursday.
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