MANHENJE INVOKES NATIONAL SECURITY

Mozambique’s former Interior Minister, Almerino Manhenje, facing charges of budgetary illegalities, complicity in illicit payments and abuse of his position, on Wednesday refused to answer questions put to him by the Maputo City Court on grounds of “national security”.The prosecution alleges that Manhenje authorised the payment of about 1.2 million meticais (about 34,300 US dollars at current exchange rates, but much more at the time of the payments) for communication costs that benefitted people who were not even employed by the Interior Ministry.When judge Octavio Tchuma asked him to explain these payments, Manhenje replied “State security is measured by what does not happen. There are certain missions that because of their sensitivity cannot be revealed. If we are sitting here today, it’s because many people are doing their best for national security”.“What is the military or paramilitary force that can perform its mission properly without strong logistics and communications?”, he asked – although he was supposed to be answering questions, not asking them.The court tried again, asking Manhenje how these payments fitted into the Ministry budget. But the former minister refused to give the details the judge wanted, on the grounds that he had sworn an oath of secrecy in the past and he could not break it, even before a court.“In the interests of the country and of national security, there are certain truths that, for the good of the state and its institutions, I cannot speak about, and am not authorised to speak about – even if this damages my defence”, said Manhenje. “Some truths may benefit me, but would be manifestly damaging for the national interest. Peace and national reconciliation have their price. And I have my oath”.Asked why he had benefited from foodstuffs paid for out of Ministry funds, Manhenje spoke of products destined for the guest houses allocated to the Ministry and to the State Security and Intelligence Service (SISE), but again he refused to go into any detail.“For the good and security of the country, there are certain questions that cannot be accessible to everyone”, he said – and if it had any further questions on the matter, the court should ask “my superiors”.As Minister of the Interior, and Minister in the President’s Office for Defence and Security Matters, the only superiors to whom Manhenje answered were the then President, Joaquim Chissano, and Chissano’s two Prime Ministers, first Pascoal Mocumbi and later Luisa Diogo.Manhenje was more forthcoming about air tickets paid for his wife and daughter. He claimed that this expenditure had been authorised by Chissano, and that once they had reached their destination, their accommodation expenses were paid out of his own pocket.As for his wife’s cell phone bill, paid by the Ministry, he said that at the time both he and his wife had been absent, and it was the Ministry’s protocol office that took the initiative to pay the bill. The court should therefore direct this question to the protocol office.One charge Manhenje flatly denied. He said he had not authorised the alienation of two Ministry warehouses to the company Unipol (which was supposed to produce police uniforms). In fact, Unipol had been allowed to use the warehouses but was never their owner, since any such alienation would have required not only his signature, but also that of the Finance Minister.“That’s why those warehouses remain, up until today, state property”, Manhenje said. The former Minister said the accusations against him derive from how the 2004 budget was implemented. The General State Accounts for that year had been analysed by the Administrative Tribunal (the body that oversees the legality of state expenditure, and later by the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic. At no point had he been called upon to give an explanation of how his Ministry’s budget had been spent. The first time he had been confronted with any accusations was at the Public Prosecutor’s Office (in late 2008).This was rather disingenuous of Manhenje, since he knew full well that immediately after taking office in 2005 his successor, Jose Pacheco, ordered a full audit of the Interior Ministry.His co-accused, the former director and deputy director of the Ministry’s finance department, Carlos Fidelis and Alvaro Carvalho, both recognised that they had made illicit payments. But they excluded from this the payment of foodstuffs for high ranking Ministry officers which they claimed was “an old practice” in the Ministry.They also fell back on the Nuremburg defence. They were just carrying out orders from their superiors.