A Maputo District Court has convicted a former financial director of LAM - Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (TM, Maputo) for abuse of office following a Mozambican anti-corruption task-force (Gabinete Central do Combate à Corrupção - GCCC) investigation into several airline executives last year.
The official AIM news agency reports Jeremias Tchamo was given a two-year suspended sentence.
The GCCC's case had centred on Tchamo awarding twenty-five contracts worth MZN5.3 million meticais (USD190,000) to a construction firm linked to his brother, who was also a LAM employee at the time. The violations are said to have occurred between 2008 and 2014.
The GCCC has also looked into LAM's dealings with an unspecified foreign firm over the purchase, sale and hire of two Dash 8-400s in 2008 during the administration of José Viegas.
Mozambique's Transport and Communications Minister, Carlos Mesquita, has also pledged to investigate reports that LAM executives engaged in corrupt practices when they agreed to purchase two E190s from Embraer (EMB, São José dos Campos Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf) in 2008.
This case stems from a US Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into Embraer over corrupt dealings between 2008 and 2010. The Brazilian manufacturer has since agreed to pay the DOJ and Brazilian authorities USD205 million as part of a global settlement.
