Donors have threatened to stop financing Mozambique's National Demining Institute (IND), because of alleged irregularities detected in the IND accounts of the last two years, according to a report in the latest issue of the weekly paper "Zambeze".
Citing unnamed diplomatic sources, the paper says that IND director Gamiliel Munguambe is accused of wasting money on luxury vehicles. The IND spends 72 million meticais (about three thousand US dollars) a month in hiring a Volvo from the car hire firm Hertz, which is used as Munguambe's vehicle.
The IND also allegedly spent 40,000 dollars in buying an Audi A6.
"Zambeze" says that the French Cooperation Agency was angered when a demining machine it donated to the IND was auctioned off. It was purchased from the IND by an Angolan demining company.
The paper suggests that the money from the sale was used to replenish funds from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which had been spent on the Volvo and the Audi.
The French agency is cited as saying that it would have been preferable to sell the machine to a local demining company rather than a foreign one.
Other donors who are said to be unwilling to provide further funding for the IND are Switzerland, Austria, Canada and Denmark.
Munguambe rejects all the accusations against his management of the IND. He told "Zambeze" he regarded himself as the victim of "intrigues" by people annoyed at the new dynamic he claims to have introduced to the IND.
"All this noise is just a campaign from people interested in damaging the image of the institution which I have rehabilitated", he said.
The decisions he took, he added, were first agreed with Foreign Minister Leonardo Simao (the IND is subordinate to the Foreign Ministry).
He found donor complaints strange because the IND had restored all funds allegedly used for illicit ends. Complaints that money, donated by the Swiss and Austrian cooperation agencies for IND regional delegations in the centre and north of the country, had not been transferred were unfounded. Munguambe said the transfer of funds has already begun.
As for the French machine, Munguambe declared "I ordered it to be sold because it was obsolete". The money raised had reverted to the IND, he said.
He also defended hiring the Volvo. The car was compatible with his duties, he said. The Nissan Patrol that the IND had initially allocated to him was a car for driving in the city, and was not appropriate for trips into the countryside, Munguambe argued.
Fonte: Noticias
