Maputo, June 18, 2025 (Lusa) - The Mozambican government on Wednesday asked the European Union (EU) to consider resuming direct support to the state budget, suspended in May 2016 when the hidden debts scandal was discovered.
“Mozambique has reiterated its request for the EU to consider resuming direct support to the state budget,” said Mário Ngoenha, director of the Office of the National Authorising Officer of the Mozambican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, reading the joint statement after the partnership dialogue between the government and the European Union, held today in Maputo.
For its part, in the same joint statement, the EU stresses the “need for a favourable environment to increase trade and investment flows with Mozambique”.
The scandal of Mozambique’s hidden debts dates back to 2013 and 2014, when the then minister of finance, Manuel Chang, now detained in the United States, approved, without parliamentary approval, state guarantees on loans taken out by the companies Proinducus, Ematum and MAM from Credit Suisse and VTB banks.
Discovered in 2016, the debts were estimated at around US$2.7 billion (more than €2.3 billion), according to figures presented by the Mozambican public prosecutor, who has since won the legal disputes involving this case in courts in the country and abroad.
Mozambique was then one of the ten fastest growing economies in the world for two decades, according to the World Bank, but ended up plunging into financial turmoil after the case, considered one of the country’s biggest financial scandals, which led to the blocking of foreign aid from several countries and multilateral organisations at the time.
Today’s meeting between the government and the European bloc also discussed terrorism in Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country, where the European Union has been supporting the Mozambican armed forces with training and non-lethal equipment, as well as the need for reforms in the judicial system in the context of the electoral process.
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