The son of Mozambique’s former president Armando Guebuza was arrested on Saturday in a legal crackdown on suspects linked to a USD 2 billion government debt scandal, local media and judiciary sources said.<\/p>\n
Ndabi Guebuza, the oldest of Guebuza’s four children, was picked up from his home in the capital Maputo.<\/p>\n
Maputo-based independent STV channel said he was arrested in connection with a government debt which plunged the country into its worst financial crisis.<\/p>\n
“He is one of the eight arrested by order of the Attorney General,” a judiciary source who asked not to be named, told AFP.<\/p>\n
Mozambican authorities this week arrested seven other suspects, including businessmen and intelligence officials in connection with the debt scandal.<\/p>\n
The scandal came to light in 2016, a year after the ex-leader Guebuza left office following a 10-year tenure.<\/p>\n
It is alleged that while he was still in power, the government in Maputo had taken out loans amounting to 2 billion to buy a tuna-fishing fleet and surveillance ships, but hid the transaction from parliament and international donors.<\/p>\n
An independent audit found that a quarter of the loan amount was diverted, and unaccounted for.<\/p>\n
When the debt was revealed, Mozambique — which is one of the world’s poorest countries and relies on donor aid — was plunged into the worst financial crisis in its history as donors froze contributions.<\/p>\n
The United States alleges at least 200 million was spent on bribes and kickbacks, including 12 million for former finance minister Manuel Chang, who allegedly signed off the debt.<\/p>\n
Chang, 63, was arrested at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport on December 29 on a US extradition request over his alleged involvement in the fraudulent loans to state firms. He was denied bail on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Ndambi Guebuza, who is a businessman, is alleged to have received 9.7 million in bribes, according to a US indictment.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The son of Mozambique’s former president Armando Guebuza was arrested on Saturday in a legal crackdown on suspects linked to a USD 2 billion government debt scandal, local media and judiciary sources said. Ndabi Guebuza, the oldest of Guebuza’s four children, was picked up from his home in the capital Maputo. Maputo-based independent STV channel said he was arrested in connection with a government debt which plunged the country into its worst financial crisis. “He is one of the eight arrested by order of the Attorney General,” a judiciary source…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20812"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20814,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20812\/revisions\/20814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}