Good morning. The day has started with bad news: Amade Abubcar, the courageous Cabo Delgado journalist, is to face fresh charges. He was notified yesterday of the charges, which still centre on the preposterous claim that he was behind the insurgency-supporting Facebook account that he himself exposed for Carta de Moçambique.
Down here in Maputo, the Pope is in town and for that reason the capital, at least, has shut down. We’re partially observing the public holiday — no Daily Briefing today — but the rest of the country outside Maputo is not.
And nor is it a public holiday in London, New York, and wherever else Mozambique’s sovereign bond holders are situated. Today is the deadline for them to reply to Mozambique's restructure proposal — even as the Pope prays for Mozambique at Zimpeto stadium.
The latest news to come out of the restructure proposal is that Mozambique ultimately wants to seek compensation for the whole EMATUM, ProIndicus, and quite possibly MAM debacles, from the banks who arranged the financing and from Privinvest who supplied them.
SEE: Mozambique seeks to bar hidden loan conspirators from eurobond restructure
But in the meantime they say they’re going to pay at least the sovereign bond — taking the burden onto the shoulders of Mozambicans while the wheels of justice slowly turn.
Mozambique is also seeking compensation from South African energy company Finergy Petroleum, which underbid the likes of Trafigura, Glencore, and Vitol, to win Mozambique’s latest fuel tender — and then promptly failed to meet its supply commitments. But industry sources have told Zitamar News that IMOPETRO, the company that ordered the tender, should’ve known better.
SEE: IMOPETRO ‘was warned’ over failed fuel importer
The election campaign is now in full swing. The best English-language source on that is the Mozambique Political Process Bulletin published by CIP, which is distributed by email. But if you’re not on that list, it can be hard to find — so we’re now uploading it to the Zitamar website as soon as it becomes available, free for anyone to access. The three most recent editions are already online.
SEE: Mozambique Political Process Bulletin
We’ll also alert our Live Blog whenever a new one goes online.
SEE: Zitamar Live Blog (also on our website)
Have a great weekend.
Recent Briefings:
- New stats head promises to review census results; Junta and election are threats to August peace deal
- Pope Francis lands tonight; US hidden debts indictment suggests $450m siphoned off EMATUM
- Mozambique seeks to bar hidden loan conspirators from eurobond restructure — and wants Privinvest and Credit Suisse to pay for it
- Advantage Frelimo as election campaign kicks off; Gun-runner in Sudan says destination was Cabo Delgado
