Good afternoon. When public figures go on trial in Mozambique for corruption or other abuses of their position, they tend to face a trial by public opinion first. Curiously, that does not seem to be happening in the case of João Pó Jorge, commonly known as João Pó, the former director-general of state-owned airline LAM.
Pó is one of several LAM executives who have been arrested as part of what looks like a wide-ranging investigation into corruption and mismanagement at the airline. He has been in prison for 36 days now without any charge, but weekly newspaper Canal de Moçambique suggested yesterday that prosecutors believe he was involved in alleged undue payments to Fly Modern Ark, the consultancy brought in to rescue the struggling LAM. For about a year and a half between 2023 and 2024, Fly Modern Ark (FMA) effectively ran LAM. According to Canal, prosecutors think that, because LAM continued to lose money, this shows that the contract was not fulfilled. If that really is their argument, it might be difficult to argue in court. But in any case, it would be difficult to pin the blame for any failings by FMA on Pó.
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That FMA’s management of LAM was a disappointment is clear. Some of its decisions, like the acquisition of a cargo plane and the resumption of the loss-making flights between Lisbon and Maputo, have now been reversed. Whether FMA’s behaviour rises to the level of a crime is another matter. Regardless, Zitamar News understands that Pó maintains he had nothing to do with FMA’s decisions, nor with the payments made to it. In fact, we are told, he objected to several of them, like the acquisition of the cargo plane, the Lisbon-Maputo flights and the discounting of domestic plane tickets by 30%. But they went ahead anyway. In fact, Pó offered to resign when FMA was brought in, but he remained at the request of then transport minister Mateus Magala.
