- Corruption of public servants is hampering the fight against money laundering and counter-terrorist financing
By Noémia Mendes e Paul Fauvet
Maputo (MOZTIMES) - Mozambique has a new Director of the Central Office for the Fight Against Corruption (GCCC), Glória da Conceição Adamo, who took office on 16 September, replacing Ana Maria Gemo, who had been in the post for 16 years.
The change of top leadership at the central anti-corruption agency comes at a critical time for Mozambique, which is struggling to curb terrorist financing and combat money laundering, two types of transnational organised crime that are facilitated by endemic corruption involving public servants.
Mozambique is ranked 145th least corrupt nation out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. Beyond the endemic corruption of government officials, characterised by the embezzlement of public money, public servants are accused of receiving bribes to facilitate transnational organised crime such as terrorist financing, money laundering, illegal immigration, kidnapping for ransom, drug and human trafficking and the smuggling of natural resources.
In exchange for bribes, immigration officials are accused of facilitating the entry and exit of people suspected of financing terrorism, while civil registry officials issue identification documents to illegal foreign nationals.
These practices are hampering the government's counter-terrorism efforts in the northern region of the country, which since 2017 has been under attack by a local jihadist group called Al-Shabaab or Ahlu SunnaWal Jammah, backed by the Islamic State terrorist group.
In 2022, Mozambique was placed on the Financial Action Task Force's grey list due to chronic deficiencies in preventing and combating terrorist financing and money laundering.
‘We cannot have a society which normalises acts of corruption that contribute to the practice of organised crime, such as terrorism and its financing, money laundering, illegal immigration, kidnapping and trafficking in people and drugs,’ the Attorney General, Beatriz Buchili said after swearing in the new Director of the GCCC.
A young prosecutor specialising in organised crime
The new head of the government's central anti-corruption agency has worked in various government institutions and has specialised training in fighting against organised crime.
Aged 49, Glória da Conceição Adamo joined the Public Prosecutor's Office 21 years ago, in 2003, and was assigned to the Criminal Section of the Maputo Provincial Law Court. Subsequently, she worked as head of the Criminal Section at the Provincial Prosecutor's Office in Maputo and at the Criminal Section of Maputo's High Court of Appeal, as well as serving as Deputy Prosecutor General to the Criminal Section of the Supreme Court.
With a first degree in Legal Sciences from the Politécnica University, Gloria Adamo has completed a postgraduate course in Drug Trafficking, Prevention of and Combating Corruption, Money Laundering, and Organized Crime at the Faculty of Law of Lisbon and Eduardo dos Santos University, Huambo, Angola, and a course in Criminal Investigation Techniques organized by the United States Department of Justice.
She is currently studying for a master's degree in Legal Sciences at the Faculty of Law of Eduardo Mondlane University.
‘We're not going to be afraid to fight corruption,’ Glória Adamo said in her first speech after taking office. ‘We are carrying out a task that is in the interest of all the Mozambican people’. (NM/PF)
