Mozambique should not repay Credit Suisse loan in $2bn debt scandal, say NGOs
Group of NGOs demands the lender and former employees should be held responsible for fraudulent debt transactions
Maputo — Mozambique should not repay any of the loans it got from Credit Suisse as part of a $2bn sovereign debt scandal that has seen three former employees and a former finance minister arrested, a group of nongovernmental organisations said. “We demand that Credit Suisse publicly declare that the Mozambican people should not pay a single cent on those debts,” the group said in a letter to the bank signed by people including Graça Machel, Nelson Mandela’s widow. “Recovery of any money should come from the companies and individuals who, instead, have benefited from this chaos.” Mozambique was plunged into a financial crisis in 2016 after the government owned up to $1.4bn of previously undisclosed loans for a maritime-security and tuna-fishing project. Mozambique has been in default since early 2017 and has been seeking to restructure the debt. A US indictment of some of the bankers and government officials involved has led to fresh allegations that the loans were illegal and should...
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