Maputo — The former chairperson of the Mozambican Airport Company (ADM), Diodino Cambaza, on Thursday admitted that irregularities had occurred while he was running the company, but tried to shift the blame onto the shoulders of successive financial directors.

Cambaza is the main accused in a major corruption trial before the Maputo City Court. He, and four others, including former Transport Minister Antonio Munguambe, are charged with draining the equivalent of two million US dollars from the coffers of ADM.

Cambaza admitted that Munguambe had approached him verbally seeking money from ADM to pay South African school fees for his children. Following this request 33,000 US dollars was transferred to Munguambe's account in two instalments.

But Cambaza denied that he had authorised the transfers. He claimed that the first instalment, of 8,000 dollars, transferred on 31 January 2007, was entirely the responsibility of the financial director at the time, Hermenegildo Mavale.

"The conversation was from the Minister to the Chairman of the Board (himself)", Cambaza told the court. "After this conversation I raised the matter at the Board of Directors. Because it has to do with Administration and Finance, it was up to Heremegildo Mavale to do the rest, without the matter passing through the hands of the chairperson".

He added that when, some time later, Munguambe thanked him for the loan, "I was surprised, since I did not know that the money had been granted, But I didn't say anything to the Minister".

It was Mavale who eventually blew the whistle on the alleged thefts at ADM, and he is due to appear as a witness later in the trial. Cambaza's version of events is, to say the least, disingenuous. Since he took the Minister's request to the Board, other board members might reasonably have supposed that he was supporting it.

Two other institutions, the publicly owned mobile phone company M-Cel, and the Mozambique National Communications Institute (INCM), received the same request from Munguambe - and turned him down.

The second instalment, of 25,000 dollars, was transferred on 27 December 2007. By this time Mavale was no longer in charge of ADM finance, and Cambaza blamed his successor, Antenor Pereira, who is one of his co-accused in the dock. Nonetheless, Cambaza admitted that he had authorised the payment of the loan, not to Munguambem, but to Pereira. It was then promptly transferred from Pereira's account to Munguambe's.

As for a further illicit loan, for 15,000 dollars, made to another co-accused, Antonio Bulande, the former head of Munguambe's office, Cambaza said that he received the request, but then passed it on to Pereira.

"This loan did not follow the legal procedures", he admitted. "The payment was irregular because it was not in line with the regulations of the ADM workers' social fund". But Cambaza said he only realized this during the course of the criminal investigations.

Cambaza said that he received a note from Munguambe instructing him to appoint Bulande as a non-executive director of ADM. This never happened - instead, Bulande was given the fictional post of legal advisor in the ADM subsidiary SMS (Mozambican Services Company). For this non-job, Bulande was initially paid 1,100 dollars a month, which was increased, after three months, to 1,750 dollars.

Asked why Bulande had been given this sinecure, Cambaza said he didn't know - although two days earlier another of the co-accused, SMS managing director Deolinda Matos, said it had been at Cambaza's insistence.

Cambaza said that Bulande rang him up personally "two or three times" to complain about late payment of his wages from SMS - although, as far as Deolinda Matos could recall, he never did any legal work for SMS at all. As for the cheque for 25,000 dollars issued by SMS to a certain Joseldo Massango, Cambaza said he knew nothing about this matter, and did not know who Massango was.

But the records of the investigation state that Cambaza used the cheque to buy a property covering 3,000 square metres in Marracuene district (about 30 kilometres north of Maputo) owned by Massango. But Massango was only asking for 20,000 dollars, and so the rest was pocketed by Cambaza.

The presiding judge, Dimas Marroa, reminded Cambaza of this deal - and of the documents whch Massango had provided to the court, proving the purchase of the property.

Marroa asked him to check the signature that appears on the documents. "It looks like my signature", Cambaza admitted.

As for ADM's payment of five million meticais (about 182,500 dollars) to the building company Caluminios, for rehabilitation work on the Central Party School of the ruling Frelimo Party in the southern city of Matola, Cambaza recognised that this had been discussed at a meeting of the ADM board at which only four directors were present - himself, Pereira, Maria Joao Coito (Commercial Director) and Antonio Loureiro (technical director).

Were there any minutes of this meeting?, asked Marroa. Cambaza said no minutes had been taken because this was a "working meeting", and not a decision-taking meeting. Yet it seems to have taken the not insignificant decision to donate five million meticais to the ruling party.

When asked who in Frelimo was involved, Cambaza asked if he was obliged to reply (he was not - under Mozambican law, accused persons are not obliged to answer any questions. Unlike witnesses, they are not even obliged to tell the truth). Eventually, Cambaza said he had been approached by the director of the Frelimo School, Arlindo Chilundo.

Asked about changes to the ADM regulations which allowed members of the Board to acquire houses owned by ADM for 60 per cent of their value, Cambaza remarked "now we can see how the acquisition of buildings was disorganized, Unfortunately, various mistakes were made".

He claimed that he did not know that a central Maputo house, which cost 850,000 dollars, had been registered in his name, and that it was mortgaged to Barclays Bank, because of ADM's debts to the bank.

Cambaza claims that one of his relatives, Zeca Alfazema, was the middleman in the property deals, and changed the registration of two houses from the name of ADM to the names of Cambaza and his wife.

"I didn't authorize the change of names", he claimed. "I didn't even know about it". (Records from the investigation tell a different story, with documents drawn up by Cambaza requesting the change.)

After questioning all five accused this week, the court is expected to begin hearing witnesses on Monday.