Dangerous liaisons: PIC, Rassul and the Port of Nacala

The controversial businessman Momade Rassul is a key character in the dodgy deal involving the Public Investment Corporation, Muhammad Amir Mirza and Siyabonga Nene.

The case of Rassul reflects the intertwining of politics, business and illicit trade — an intersection that the PIC better get savvy to if it wants to make wise investment decisions.

Disastrous deal: Mozambican Momade Rassul is said to be a business kingpin in Nacala, where he owns the S&S Palm Oil Plant and warehouses. He has been charged with money laundering, illegal enrichment and fraud, but not with heroin trafficking, though the town is on a known heroin trade route In Mozambique, there are strong inferences to be drawn about the state’s role in facilitating the heroin trade — from heroin seizures that have disappeared from official records to dock workers in Nacala and Maputo who are instructed not to scan certain containers, and the fact that although South African police regularly seizes heroin strapped to the chassis of cars travelling across the Lebombo border post, the Mozambican officials at Ressano Garcia have never impounded so much as a...

When Mozambique began to liberalise its economy in the late 1980s and 1990s, these traders were part of a small number of citizens who had the capital to enter into the economy, and were able, with the same capital, to quickly ingratiate themselves with the political elite. Across the continent, groups who had even slight advantages at moments of transition have been able to launch themselves into the illicit economy, often securing political advantages that protect them at the same time.

If Rassul is a smuggler, the Port of Nacala is hugely important to his illicit enterprise. It is considered, in interviews about a range of illicit trades with a number of residents in the north of Mozambique, to be a corrupt port.

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