28 Middle East & Africa The EconomistAugust 24th 2019
2 hid information, invented fake competing
bids and prepped Mozambican officials
with answers to due-diligence questions,
wrong-footing their own compliance de-
partment. Mr Pearse and Ms Subeva left the
bank in the summer of 2013, as the second
loan was being finalised, and joined a Priv-
invest subsidiary. They have each pleaded
guilty to one charge against them in a New
York court (Mr Singh is yet to plead). Sepa-
rately, Mozambique is suing Credit Suisse,
Privinvest and others in London for dam-
ages relating to the secret loans.Second, the indictment names the lead
salesman of Privinvest, who is in American
custody, and its chief financial officer. It
does not charge the firm itself or its chief
executive, Iskandar Safa, a French-Leba-
nese billionaire (and former discus cham-
pion). But in a court statement last month
Mr Pearse said that Mr Safa knew about
bribes that Privinvest was paying, prompt-
ing Mozambique to sue Mr Safa as well. Pri-
vinvest and its employees have denied
wrongdoing. A lawyer for the group ques-
tions whether America even has jurisdic-tion over alleged crimes on the other side
of the world.
At the third point of the triangle are
three Mozambican officials, including Ma-
nuel Chang, the finance minister who ap-
proved the loan guarantees. He was arrest-
ed in Johannesburg airport in December,
and has been the subject of a legal and dip-
lomatic tussle ever since. The American
government is requesting his extradition.
But so too is the government of Mozam-
bique, which wants him to face justice at
home—perhaps to prevent him spilling the
beans on others in a foreign courtroom.
The American intervention has stirred
Mozambican authorities into action. In
February they arrested several people in
connection with the debt scandal, includ-
ing the son of Armando Guebuza, who was
president when the loans were made. This
month 20 people were indicted on charges
including corruption and money-launder-
ing. But this is not a genuine quest for jus-
tice, says Fernando Lima, a veteran journal-
ist in Maputo. The government is desperate
to get back into the good books of the inter-
national community. It also has one eye on
elections in October.
Meanwhile, the debts are not being paid
back. Whether they should be is an open
question. The three loans are tainted with
corruption and were all guaranteed with-
out parliamentary approval, which is re-
quired by the constitution (parliament
retroactively approved the loans after the
scandal broke). As part of its case against
Credit Suisse, Mozambique wants the guar-
antee on the first hidden loan to be ruled
invalid. It is trying to restructure the other
hidden loan, arranged by vtb, a Russian
state bank.
The tuna debt is a different matter. In
June the top constitutional court in Mo-
zambique ruled that the initial loan, con-
tracted in 2013, was indeed illegal. But it is
unclear what weight the ruling has in Eng-
lish law (under which the debt was issued).
A crucial question is whether the sin of the
original loan carries forward to the bond
which replaced it in 2016. Matthias Gold-
mann of Goethe University in Germany
says it should not be possible to wash clean
a dirty deal by swapping it for a new one.
Many lawyers think otherwise. So far Mo-
zambique has said it will repay bondhold-
ers, albeit later than it first promised.
Mozambique may be able to win
enough damages to pay off some of its
debts, especially if more evidence of cor-
ruption comes to light. It could also sell off
the trawlers, which bob idly in Maputo har-
bour. But beneath the legal questions lies a
moral one, say many in Mozambique. “We
should not pay,” argues Denise Namburete
of the Budget Monitoring Forum, a civil-
society group. Many players are responsi-
ble for the scandal, she says, but not the
Mozambican people. 7E
radicating polioishard.It iseven
harder when politicians and imams
fan the conspiracy theory that the polio
vaccine is part of a Western plot to steril-
ise Muslims, as happened for several
years in northern Nigeria. So in 2015
Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Bu-
hari, decided to set an example. He gave
the vaccine to one of his grandchildren
on television, before rallying politicians
and tribal leaders to join the campaign.
His efforts, and those of hundreds of
thousands of volunteers, have paid off.
On August 21st Nigeria marked three
years since its last documented case of
wild polio. That means the country is set
to be declared polio-free by the World
Health Organisation-backed Global Polio
Eradication Initiative. If that happens,
probably next year, all of Africa will be
officially free of the virus. Polio will
remain in only Afghanistan and Paki-
stan; and one day it will be completely
eradicated, like smallpox was in 1980.
Mass vaccination in Nigeria, Africa’s
most populous country, was a logistical
challenge. Health workers went village to
village in round after round of cam-
paigns. They were stationed in markets
and at border crossings. To reach remote
spots, they got creative. Satellite imaging
was used to map the islands around Lake
Chad. Then health workers went by
canoe to deliver the vaccine.
Violence was a big problem. Polio was
last found in a child in Borno, a north-
eastern state ravaged by Boko Haram. The
jihadist group prefers kidnapping chil-
dren to vaccinating them. It helped
spread the myth about sterilisation. So
brave health workers have been rushing
into areas from which it retreats (even
temporarily). An improving security
situation has helped. In 2015 about
600,000 children were not accessible.
Now that number is under 100,000.Volunteerstrainedtospot the virus
have been crucial in preventing out-
breaks—not just of polio. In 2014 they
helped trace nearly 900 people who may
have been exposed to Ebola after an
infected man from Liberia arrived in
Lagos. Nigeria quickly contained the
virus, which killed eight in the country.
The big worry now is that polio from
Afghanistan and Pakistan may be
brought to Africa and lead to new out-
breaks. In the past polio from India made
its way to Angola and Congo after they
were declared polio-free. The strain from
Pakistan is already travelling: it was
recently found in sewage in Iran. That is
one reason why it is important to main-
tain high vaccination rates in Africa.
This week’s anniversary is good news,
but risks remain. Mutations of the weak-
ened virus in the vaccine are circulating
in several African countries, including
Nigeria. Higher vaccination rates will
solve that problem, too. More work is
still needed.Vanquishing the virus
Polio in AfricaAfrica is on the verge of being polio-freeNo anti-vaxxers here