“We ask to recover what is missing.”
A group of fifty-four employees working in the Quirimbas Nature Park in Mozambique has sent an open letter to new Mozambican President Daniel Chapo, asking him to stop the illegal timber logging and smuggling in the park, which was exposed earlier by ZAM.
The letter, sent anonymously for fear of repercussions, urgently asks for Chapo’s intervention to stop the plunder of trees by Chinese syndicates in collusion with the park’s management. It also asks Chapo to send in auditors to check on the park’s financial governance.
The letter was published on Friday 25 April on the site Moz24hrs, which is managed by ZAM correspondent Estacio Valoi. Valoi first exposed timber smuggling in the Quirimbas on this website. It was during his investigation that he gained the trust of the employees, resulting in them passing the letter to him for publication.
Some excerpts from the letter, translated from Portuguese into English, are reproduced here:
Your Excellency, President Daniel Chapo,
As employees of the Quirimbas National Park, we are dissatisfied with the governance of Mr. Duarte Mussa Laqueliwa. For the past four years, the development of this Park has been regressing significantly as a result of this administrator's mismanagement, the features of which are: total and complete monopoly, exaggerated abuse of power, constant insults to direct collaborators, and massive logging by the Chinese company Success Investments (…) together with the Park Administrator, some inspectors, and the (Park Control) Delegate Jorge Tassicane Mbofana. (…) “Every day, loggers and forestry product traders transport timber in their giant trucks (…) lining the pockets of Mr. Duarte Laqueliwa and Mr. Jorge Mbofana.”
The employees explain that good governance plans for the park existed four years ago, but these have not been implemented. In contrast, they write: “The administrator appropriates all national and foreign (travel and training) opportunities. No one else benefits from any training or qualification, and it is possible for him to spend a month outside the province or even the country. Sometimes, cheques are ordered to be issued in the name of some employees under the pretense of a work trip, but they (the park management) will collect the amount and deliver it to the administrator. There is no way to refuse—otherwise, reprisals will follow.”
The group calls for the deployment in the park of “a team of financial auditors, the Attorney General's Office, and SERNIC (Serviço Nacional de Investigação Criminal, the police investigative branch) for an investigation,” and suggests that “someone from the police with human feelings might take over the management of the park,” since “within the ministry (of environment) there is no one with the competence to direct it.”
The letter ends with an appeal to "Your Excellency the President," to "try to recover what is missing." The last sentence reads, "We, Unknown and Anonymous, ask for help."
