FILE - Former Mozambican finance minister, Manuel Chang, is seen in court in Kempton Park, Johannesburg, South Africa, Jan. 8, 2019. The"tuna bond" scandal that shook Mozambique's economy is washing into a New York court, Tuesday, July 17, 2024, where former Mozambican finance minister Manuel Chang is on trial on charges alleging he took bribes to commit his country — secretly — to huge loans that prosecutors say got looted.
Chang has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges. Defense lawyer Adam Ford told jurors there’s no evidence that Chang agreed to take payoffs, or received a penny, in exchange for having Mozambique guarantee that the loans would be repaid. The money was supposed to go to tuna fishing ships, a shipyard, and Coast Guard vessels and radar systems to protect natural gas fields off the country’s Indian Ocean coast.
The government guarantees that Chang inked were crucial because the brand-new companies “were not good enough risks for the banks to lend money to” without a backstop, Pearse said. A 2021 report by the Chr. Michelsen Institute, a development research body in Norway, estimated that the loans could ultimately cost Mozambique around $11 billion – around 60% of its current GDP. The institute said the crisis also likely forced nearly 2 million Mozambicans into poverty as international investment and aid slowed drastically and the government cut services to raise money.
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