Luanda, ANGOLA, June 20 - The former general director of the National Shippers Council (CNC), António Manuel Paulo, last Wednesday in court disclosed that 40 out of the 70 firms that rendered services to the CNC had double contracts that were also fraudulent. ,

Appointed to the post in August 2015, Manuel Paulo, one of the defendants in the CNC Trial running in the Supreme Court, in Luanda, said that he rescinded contracts after conducting enquiries to determine the veracity of fraud allegations or denunciations of irregularities.

    

The accused justified the termination of contracts by saying that he did not see the necessity of so many firms providing services to the National Shippers Council (CNC).

 

He blamed the messy situation on the previous director, Agostinho Itembo, who was at the helm of the CNC from 2007 to 2015.

 

As regards the companies in which the CNC has shares – five altogether, he disclosed – “they’ve never reimbursed either the invested capital or profits”.

 

Meanwhile, António Manuel Paulo explained to the judges that some of the money that was found in his bank account was transferred to his account by his deputy, Isabel Bragança (also on trial), without him knowing about it.

 

The former general director of the CNC stands accused of appropriating for himself seven million kwanzas, 32,000 dollars and 8,000 euros, in a lawsuit that also has as defendants the former Transports minister, Augusto Tomás, Isabel Cristina de Ceita Bragança and Rui Manuel Moita (former deputy general directors, respectively for Finance and Technical Matters of the CNC) and Eurico da Silva, former deputy director for Administration and Finances.  

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