MAPUTO, South Africa
Corruption cost the Mozambican state about 300 million meticais (4.7 million US dollars, at the current exchange rate), according to Attorney-General Beatriz Buchili.
Giving her annual report on
the state of the justice system to the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the
Republic, on Wednesday, Buchili said that the police force (PRM) topped the
list of most corrupt state institutions.
1.913 cases of alleged
corruption were processed last year – a 1.6 per cent increase on the 1,882
cases processed in 2020. There were 73 cases of corruption involving the
police, 42 in the institutions of justice, 39 in the education services, 24 in
the health service, 17 involving immigration officers, and 14 discovered in the
Tax Authority (AT).
Buchili said she was concerned
at the growing number of judges, prosecutors and other law officers involved in
acts of corruption, “since these are officials who are granted powers by the
law that supposedly guarantee integrity”.
In 2021, criminal proceedings
were initiated against 25 judges and prosecutors, compared with 22 the previous
years. All were accused of corruption and embezzlement.
Corruption in the immigration
service could also be extremely serious. Buchili pointed to a scheme involving
officials in the Foreign Ministry and in the Mozambican High Commission in
Pretoria, and the consulates in Johannesburg, Durban and Nelspruit, who were
paid to issue entry visas without the necessary documentation.
“This behaviour may contribute
to individuals linked to organized crime entering the country”, Buchili warned.
Those taking advantage of corruption in immigration could include drugs and gun
traffickers and terrorists.
The illegal entry of such
people into Mozambique. Buchili said, “compromises peace, national sovereignty
and socio-economic development”.
She also confirmed the
accusation made frequently in the Mozambican media that members of the police
force are involved in the wave of kidnappings that has plagued Mozambican
cities. This was a truly transnational crime with the kidnap gangs inside
Mozambique working closely with criminals outside the country.
Buchili said the kidnappings
had driven some business people to leave Mozambique altogether. Even when they
were released from captivity, more money was demanded from the victims as a
“freedom tax”.
But some of those who should
be on the front line combatting the kidnappers are in league with them. “The
involvement of some members of the police, lawyers, magistrates and other
figures in the judiciary creates fragilities in investigating these cases”,
said Buchili, “and endangers the safety of those public servants who are
committed to fighting against crime”.
State agents, she added, are
also involved in organized crime inside the country’s prisons, allowing mobile
phones and computers to be smuggled to inmates. Some of these prisoners, she
accused, had been involved in kidnappings, and continued to command kidnap
gangs from behind bars.
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