Mozambique's Administrative Court prevented 1.2 billion meticais (€16.1 million) in irregular public expenditure through prior scrutiny of contracts and administrative acts in the first half of 2026 — more than three times the amount blocked in the same period of the previous year.
"The Administrative Court ensured that more than 1.2 billion meticais were not spent irregularly by the Public Administration," said the tribunal's spokesman, Arquimedes João Varimelo, at a press conference in Maputo presenting the institution's first-half 2026 activity review.
According to the data presented, the Administrative Court examined more than 28,000 cases submitted for prior scrutiny for visa approval or annotation, of which approximately 20,000 were found to be legally compliant. The remainder were refused, not annotated, or returned to Public Administration bodies for further instruction due to identified irregularities.
Among the principal irregularities detected were a lack of transparency in public tenders, the absence of contractor guarantees, incompatibility between the scope of contracts and the licences held by contracted companies, and what the tribunal characterised as abusive recourse to direct award procurement.
"Direct award is an exception to the rule; however, this exception appears to be becoming the rule," Varimelo said, also pointing to the abusive use of the service urgency mechanism, which allows, under specific circumstances, contracts to be executed prior to the tribunal's prior scrutiny.
The oversight process also identified contracts and acts executed without prior submission to the tribunal, public funds disbursed outside the normal financial administration system, payment of daily allowances beyond authorised days, and expenditure lacking the required supporting documentation.
In the first half of 2025, the Administrative Court had blocked irregular spending of more than 350 million meticais (€4.7 million) through the refusal of visas and the return of cases for further instruction. The figure recorded this year is thus more than three times higher.
"In the same period last year, the Administrative Court, through the refusal of visas and returns for further instruction, prevented more than 350 million meticais from being spent irregularly, but this year we are already talking about 1.2 billion meticais — in other words, triple the amount blocked last year," Varimelo said.
In the area of concurrent and successive oversight, the tribunal completed 55 of the 199 audits planned for 2026, identifying further irregularities in the management of public resources. It also received more than 1,925 management accounts, of which 45 were certified and 110 referred to judgment due to irregularities or indications of illegality.
The court's intervention enabled the recovery of more than 88 million meticais (€1.2 million) to state coffers through restitution orders, fines, and interest charges applied to public managers. In the first half of 2025, the amount recovered had exceeded 50 million meticais (€671,000).
"We found that these concerning situations are, among other factors, driven by problems the Administrative Court has already identified. Some are publicly known and, in our view, are structural in nature," the spokesman said.
Varimelo called for greater investment in the training of officials responsible for preparing case files, reinforcement of internal controls, and stricter compliance with procurement and financial management regulations. In his view, these measures could contribute to reducing the irregularities detected by the tribunal.
In its judicial function, the Administrative Court reduced its case backlog by 20% in the first half of the year, while the number of rulings on administrative, tax, customs, and financial cases tripled. The resolution rate exceeded 100%, meaning more cases were adjudicated than were filed during the period.
The institution attributed the improvement to internal reorganisation measures, including the reassignment of deputy counsellors to different sections, the creation of new judicial panels, and the setting of targets for judicial activity.
Source: Diário Económico
Original article: https://www.diarioeconomico.co.mz/?p=535024
