Maputo, Aug. 28, 2026 (Lusa) - The Mozambican Administrative Court prevented irregular expenditure totalling 1.2 billion meticais (€16.1 million) through the prior scrutiny of contracts and administrative acts in the first half of the year, more than triple the figure for 2025.
«The Administrative Court ensured that more than 1.2 billion meticais were not spent irregularly or illegally (...) by the public administration,» said the court spokesperson, Arquimedes João Varimelo, at a press conference in Maputo, summarising the court's activities for the first half of 2026.
According to the data presented, the Administrative Court examined more than 28,000 cases submitted for prior scrutiny for granting approval or endorsement, of which around 20,000 were found to be legally compliant. The remainder were rejected, not endorsed or returned to public administration bodies for further investigation due to irregularities.
Among the main irregularities identified are a lack of transparency in public tenders, the absence of guarantees from contractors, inconsistencies between the subject matter of contracts and the licences held by the contracted companies, and what is considered to be the abusive use of direct contract awards.
«Direct awarding is an exception to the rule; however, the exception to the rule seems to be becoming the rule,» stated Varimelo, also highlighting the abusive use of the «urgency of service» clause, a mechanism which, in certain circumstances, allows contracts to be executed prior to review by the court.
The audit also identified contracts and transactions executed without prior submission to the court, public funds spent outside the normal financial management system, subsistence allowances paid for days not recorded, and expenditure lacking the relevant supporting documents.
In the first half of 2025, the Administrative Court had prevented the irregular expenditure of over 350 million meticais (€4.7 million) by refusing to grant approval and by returning cases for further investigation.
«In the same period last year, the court prevented more than 350 million meticais from being spent by refusing authorisations and returning cases for further investigation, but this year we are already talking about 1.2 billion meticais – that is, three times the figure prevented last year,» he said.
In its concurrent and ex-post audits, the court carried out 55 of the 199 audits planned for 2026, having identified further irregularities in the management of public funds. It also received more than 1,925 management accounts, of which 45 were certified and 110 referred for adjudication due to irregularities or indications of illegality.
The court's intervention enabled the recovery of more than 88 million meticais (€1.2 million) for the state coffers, through restitution orders, fines and interest imposed on public officials. In the first half of 2025, the amount recovered had exceeded 50 million meticais (€671,000).
«We note that these worrying situations are, amongst other things, driven by problems that the Administrative Court has already identified. Some of these are in the public domain and are, in our view, structural problems,» said the spokesperson.
Varimelo called for greater training for staff responsible for preparing cases, strengthened internal controls and compliance with procurement and financial management standards, believing that these measures could reduce the irregularities detected by the court.
In the judicial sphere, the Administrative Court reduced its backlog of cases by 20% in the first half of the year, whilst the number of judgements handed down in administrative, tax, customs and financial cases tripled. The resolution rate exceeded 100%, meaning that more cases were adjudicated than were filed during the period.
The institution attributed this improvement to internal reorganisation measures, including the redeployment of associate judges to different sections, the creation of new adjudicating panels and the setting of targets for judicial activity.
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