Armando Emílio Guebuza

Former President Armando Guebuza has been named in the High Court in London as a 'third party' in the civil case brought by Mozambique's Attorney-General Beatriz Buchili against Credit Suisse bank and Abu Dhabi shipbuilder Privinvest over its $2 billion in hidden loans (AC Vol 60 No 16 Guilty plea on conspiracy)...

He will therefore seek to consolidate his position by surrounding himself with loyalists such as one of the eminences grises of Nyusi's and his predecessor Armando Guebuza's administrations Celso Correia who was also the mastermind behind Frelimo's October election campaign (AC Vol 54 No 7 Scramble for Nacala)...

The figure was only previously topped by his predecessor Armando Guebuza who gained 75% in 2005 but it comes against a background of growing anti-Frelimo sentiment among the electorate especially in the wake of the US$2 billion hidden loans scandal of 2016 a growing violent insurgency in the north mishandling of the Cyclone Idai emergency and state corruption scandals across the board...

Pearse a prosecution witness against Boustani told the court how the son of former President Armando Guebuza Ndambi Guebuza now in prison in Maputo asked Privinvest for $11m so he could to buy a house in the south of France with a prostitute he had fallen in love with on top of $50m of bribes already paid...

Pearse's testimony makes clear the scale of the commissions paid; while the US indictment refers to about $200m the real amount of money unaccounted for is well over $1bn and sources close to ex-President Armando Guebuza's family say they received vast sums...

Chang is one of the major figures in the US indictment and his long career in the Ministry of Finance places him at the centre of the secret loans saga including intimate involvement with Armando Guebuza and Safa...

Former President Armando Guebuza's son Ndambi Guebuza among others is in jail awaiting trial...

The arrest last weekend of Ndambi Guebuza eldest son of ex-President Armando Guebuza in connection with the US$2 billion hidden loans scandal has sent shock waves through the ruling Frente de Libertaçao de Moçambique (Frelimo) elite and the intelligence service the Serviço de Informação e Segurança do Estado (SISE)...

In September 2013 France's President François Hollande and President Armando Guebuza presided over a ceremony in the port of Cherbourg to celebrate the Mozambican order of interceptor boats and trawlers which rescued 400 jobs with Privinvest subsidiary Constructions mécaniques de Normandie (CMN)...

Hopes were high he would take action to sweep away the corruption of the Armando Guebuza era but these soon faded (AC Vol 57 No 6 Nyusi's resolve in doubt)...

And while he is trying to clear out ex-President Armando Guebuza's unaccountable network of cronies they made sure that as many senior members of the party benefitted thus compromising them (AC Vol 58 No 21 Team Nyusi wins a point)...

Lidimo who was already seriously ill took control on behalf of the Nyusi-supporting Makonde generals while ex-President Armando Guebuza was distracted by the death of his daughter Valentina earlier in the year we hear (AC Vol 58 No 6 Nyusi celebrates Exxon's entry)...

It has not been an easy journey for President Filipe Nyusi who does not inspire the same personal loyalty as his predecessor the redoubtable Armando Guebuza...