The Administrative Court (TA) of Mozambique sentenced several public managers to return money for embezzlement and embezzlement of funds intended to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, the institution reported, without specifying amounts.
Many managers who broke the rules were forced to restore value. It is not enough to say that you made mistakes in the application, it is necessary to repair the damage”, said Jeremias Zuande, of the Contadora de Contas e Auditoria do TA, quoted today by Notícias, the main Mozambican daily.
The targets have committed crimes such as underbilling, withdrawal of funds without supporting documents, Improper direct awards, application deviations and overpayments.Zande added.
The crimes caused a loss of around two billion meticais (more than 31 million euros), he said.
That official pointed out that the sanctions were applied after audits carried out on 75% of the state institutions that received funds to combat Covid-19.
Last week, a source from the Mozambican Ministry of Economy and Finance told Lusa that the institution delivered to the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption (GCCC) the report that detected irregularities in the funds used in the fight against the pandemic.
“In the framework of inter-institutional collaboration, the report was made available to the GCCC,” the source said, without giving further details.
The Mozambican government had already recognized that around 11% of donor money for Mozambique to face Covid-19 in 2020 was used irregularly.
At stake is the equivalent of around €30 million of the total €285 million in donations used by the Mozambican state in 2020.
The endowment fund for Mozambique’s Covid-19 response plan included contributions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), African Development Bank (AfDB), Islamic Development Bank, World Bank, European Union (EU) , the United States of America and the Global Fund.
Source: Observadora
