"There are currently two ongoing processes in the Central Office for Combating Corruption, one registered under number 6/2023, which is investigating irregularities in the company's management, and another, under number 21/2024, which is investigating the circumstances in which the  POS [payment terminals] were installed in the LAM [Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique] sales terminals, as well as their ownership", said Beatriz Buchili.

Buchili was answering questions from members of the Assembly of the Republic, in the context of the information she provides annually to parliament.

"The two processes are under investigation against some of the company's managers", she said, without going into details about the judicial investigation.

The case of an alleged scheme to embezzle funds from LAM through payments in terminals that do not belong to the carrier was reported in February by the company's restructuring director, Sérgio Matos.

"We did a quick job with LAM's internal security to collect all POS and, from LAM's 20 ticket sales points, we collected 81 POS by Sunday. There are some stores where the store managers themselves do not recognize the machines and say they do not even know who they belong to", said Matos, in a press conference in Maputo.

The inspection began when the company realized that, although the number of tickets sold is increasing, the accounts are still far from what was expected.

"Sales are being made, but the company is not getting all the money and in the last three months of the evaluations we have seen that the differential we were having was in the order of between two million dollars (1.8 million euros) and three million dollars (2.7 million euros). In December alone, we have a deficit of 3.2 million dollars (2.9 million euros)", he noted.

Sérgio Matos also said that the inspection recorded suspicious cases even in the collection of cash in stores.

The inspection also identified anomalies in the supply of fuel to aircraft.

"If an aircraft has a maximum fuel capacity of 80,000 liters, we call it 80 tons, [in the documents] the same aircraft is being refueled to 95 tons. So the question is where the remaining 15 tons are going", he asked.

In addition to these anomalies, LAM's restructuring director reported the discovery of an account in Malawi with 1.2 million dollars (1.1 million euros), which no one in the company has access to.

"No one knows how to move or withdraw this amount", said Sérgio Matos, who also reported cases of employees "who use or have used company funds to buy their own homes".

LAM is undergoing a revitalization process, with the South African company Fly Modern Ark (FMA) managing it since April last year with a restructuring plan underway.

The company's revitalization strategy follows years of operational problems related to a reduced fleet and lack of investment, with some non-fatal incidents recorded, which experts associate with poor aircraft maintenance.

Also Read: Mozambique reduces malaria deaths in 2023 and starts vaccination in June (Portuguese version)