More than $1 billion that Mozambique raised in international markets with the help of two major banks can’t be fully accounted for by the state-owned companies that benefited from the funds, the auditing and risk-assessment company Kroll Inc. said in a report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The report, posted to the Mozambique attorney general’s website, found the state-owned entities can’t account for more than half of some $2 billion in loans and bonds arranged for Mozambique by VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank, and Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group AG. Neither bank has been accused of wrongdoing.
The unaccounted-for sums include a $500 million loan that should have been spent in cash but now can’t be found, the report said. It also includes roughly $800 million out of some $1.5 billion spent on assets that an assessment by an independent expert found should have cost about $700 million, the report stated.
Kroll’s report, paid for by the embassy of Sweden in Mozambique, is critical of the way the state-owned companies—MAM, Ematum and ProIndicus—were managed and operated. The report says the companies have had almost no revenue and accuses their senior management of concealing facts and avoiding the auditors.
The chief executive of all three companies is Antonio do Rosario, a senior official in Mozambique’s powerful secret service, known as SISE. He declined to comment.
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