Graft: Ex-minister on trial

MAPUTO – An ex-transport minister and three former airport officials went on trial for corruption yesterday in Mozambique, a rare case of high-level prosecution in the graft-plagued southern African nation.

Antonio Munguambe, Mozambique’s transport and communications minister from 2005 to 2008, is charged as an accomplice in the embezzlement of N$12.5m from national airport company Airports of Mozambique, according to the official news agency AIM.The airport company’s former chief executive, its ex-finance director, Munguambe’s former chief of staff and the head of an airport catering company are co-defendants in the case.The airport officials stand accused of using public funds to pay for luxury houses, cars and gifts to family members. Munguambe and his former chief of staff face lesser charges of helping to cover up the alleged embezzlement.Baltazar Sael, spokesperson for the Mozambican Public Integrity Centre, said the case is a first for Mozambique, a country that ranks in the bottom third of watchdog Transparency International’s corruption index but rarely sees high-level officials go on trial.’This is the first case that has been publicised in the press that involves major state figures, and for that reason it ends up serving as an example,’ Sael said.Sael said Munguambe is the first former minister ever to go on trial in Mozambique.He was arrested in October 2008, but has been released from prison pending the outcome of his trial.- Nampa-Sapa