Mozambique is today struggling with the consequences of the devastating hurricane Idai. Millions of people have lost their livelihoods. Another cyclone, Kenneth-19, has devastated northern Mozambique in recent days. The country now urgently needs money to alleviate the plight of the people and to start reconstruction.
But instead, the country is sitting on a huge mountain of debt and had to declare its insolvency at times - on the back of the long-suffering population. A large part of this debt, two billion US dollars, is due to the non-transparent granting of loans by Credit Suisse and a Russian bank. The money was to be used to officially modernize the coastal protection and tuna fishing fleet in order to boost the Mozambican economy. The deal was rushed past parliament and the National Bank of Mozambique, and the money went to three dubious semi-state companies. The boats were overpriced and are apparently still not in use today. And some of it just disappeared.
But because the state has taken over the guarantee for the loans, it has to pay off the debts - plus horrendous fees - instead of providing emergency aid after the disasters. UNO, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund estimate the cost of reconstruction at about 2 billion USD - that is pretty much the sum of the loan.
What we demand
Credit Suisse has blatantly violated its duty of care in granting the loans and must cancel Mozambique's debts and pay back the horrendous fees. It is unacceptable that the population should be punished for the opaque loans granted by their government. Instead of being used to service the debt, the money must be used to help the victims of the recent natural disasters.
So sign the petition to Credit Suisse. It is a joint initiative of Helvetas, terre des hommes Switzerland, Multiwatch, KEESA, ATTAC and the Mozambican Budget Monitoring Forum network. We collect the signatures decentrally on our websites and date the sum here at regular intervals. All signatures will be handed over to Credit Suisse in June.
The collection of signatures is finished. Soon we will hand over the petition to CS.
