Mondlane Escapes One Criminal Charge

25 April 2011

Maputo — Mozambique’s Attorney-General, Augusto Paulino, has declined to prosecute the former chairperson of the Constitutional Council, Luis Mondlane, for “usurpation of functions”, reports the independent weekly “Savana”.

After his use of Council funds for personal expenditure was revealed in the Mozambican press, Mondlane resigned on 17 March.

But he continued to make use of the chairperson’s office, and signed documents as chairperson of the Council on 22 March. The other six judges on the Council called in the Public Prosecutor’s Office, arguing that Mondlane was usurping a position that he had voluntarily abdicated.

They argued that Mondlane’s resignation took immediate effect, and that his use of a position he longer held was a criminal act.

But Paulino declined to prosecute on the technical grounds that Mondlane’s letter of resignation had not yet been published in the official gazette, the “Boletim da Republica”. Sources close to Paulino’s office, cited by “Savana”, recognised that Mondlane had violated professional ethics, but claimed that, without publication in the gazette, his resignation had no legal effects.

Other jurists cited by the paper reject this argument. They say that publication of a letter of resignation in the gazette is merely for information purposes, and non-publication does not suspend the resignation.

But this is the least of Mondlane’s worries. The more serious accusations against him concern the abuse of public funds. This is now under investigation by a team of prosecutors headed by assistant attorney-general, Erasmo Nhavoto.

A Commission of Inquiry set up by the Constitutional Council, which reported in late March, found compelling evidence for all the main accusations in the press concerning Mondlane’s illicit use of Council funds to cover his personal expenses.

The most serious accusation is that Mondlane used Council money to pay for his mortgage on a luxury house in central Maputo. The mortgage contract had been signed in 2009 between Mondlane and the country’s second largest bank, the BCI. The house cost 24.3 million meticais (900,000 US dollars at the time, but only 784,000 dollars now, due to exchange rate fluctuations).

Mondlane was to pay the mortgage off in 180 monthly installments over 15 years. Including the interest, the payments were slightly more than 295,700 meticais a month. But Mondlane agreed with the bank that only 71,721 meticais a month would be taken from his personal account at the BCI. The other 224,000 meticais a month would be paid by the Constitutional Council as rent for a house that was not even registered in the Council’s name.

The Commission of Inquiry also found that Mondlane had indeed used Council funds to purchase furnishings for the house, and a vast range of other personal goods and services, costing about 8.8 million meticais.

The purchases violated the rules for the procurement of goods and services by state bodies such as the Constitutional Council. Instead of opening tenders for the goods required, Mondlane or his wife personally visited shops, ordered the goods or services they wanted, and presented the invoices to the Administration and Finance Department (DAF) of the Constitutional Council.

That report from the Commission of Inquiry is now in the hands of Nhavotso’s team. Even before this, however, Paulino had ordered a forensic audit of the accounts of the Constitutional Council.

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