By Foreign Correspondent

In conference rooms still shadowed by Mozambique’s $2-billion “hidden debts” saga, the Ministry of Economy and Finance has granted a mandate to Emerging Markets Finance Corporation USA (EMFC), a Washington-registered advisory boutique led by Montenegrin national Ratko Knežević, according to documents reviewed by our Correspondent.

Civil society groups say the arrangement risks rebuilding the opaque financial architectures that once hobbled the economy.

EMFC presents as a lean consultancy focused on emerging-market financial structures, distinct from larger forex players such as Emerging Markets Ltd.

Under the mandate, the firm is positioned to advise on export contracts and sovereign resource mechanisms for graphite, gas and other strategic commodities, without evidence of a publicly advertised tender.

“The danger in Mozambique is always the creation of parallel structures of power,” said Adriano Nuvunga, director of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CDD). “You’re not just buying advice, you’re buying a way to circumvent rules.”

Knežević’s résumé straddles journalism in the former Yugoslavia, diplomatic postings for Montenegro and high-profile disputes that include early-2000s contraband allegations.

He was briefly detained in the UK in connection with UN sanctions violations; the case did not proceed.

In recent years he has cast himself as a whistleblower in Balkan proceedings and now places EMFC at the nexus of foreign capital and Mozambique’s gas sector.

Investigators say that in late 2023 EMFC signed agreements with Mozambican state-owned enterprises to create special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) in Delaware or Mauritius, jurisdictions associated with corporate secrecy.

Such structures are typically justified as ring-fencing risk off the sovereign balance sheet; critics warn they also enable off-ledger commissions and weaken oversight by the National Treasury and the Administrative Court.

For a country still repairing its reputation after the Ematum-era guarantees, the absence of a competitive tender is flagged as a first red light.

In that scandal, off-balance-sheet borrowing metastasised into a national crisis, collapsing the metical and entrenching austerity.

Documents reviewed by analysts indicate EMFC’s role includes designing “financial structures” for commodity exports, language often associated with offshore intermediaries and complex cash-flow routing.

Transparency advocates note the hidden-debts affair was less about “bad loans” than about outsourcing state power to charismatic intermediaries promising speed and discretion.

The EMFC brief lands in a political economy marked and controlled by unelected fixers.

Figures such as Alcides Viegas Chihono (“Cantoná”) and Ingilo Dalsuco, son-in-law of jailed former finance minister Manuel Chang, are cited by critics as emblematic of an “informal empire” where access trumps process.

Property transactions linked to state needs since 2015, worth more than 800-million meticais, have kept questions alive about influence over public assets.

Mozambique’s corridors are lifelines for landlocked neighbours.

Malawi relies on Beira and Nacala for fuel and fertiliser; governance risk around commodity flows, especially if routed through offshore vehicles or exposed to sanctions, could translate into price shocks and legal bottlenecks across the region.

EMFC’s reported remit touches graphite and LNG, global-significance resources.

If advisory fees are pegged to deal size or export volumes, watchdogs caution incentives could favour throughput and complexity over beneficiation, transparency and long-term value.

Persistent mismatches between export volumes and recorded royalties already trouble tax-justice groups; another intermediary with the power to design offshore vehicles may widen leakages.

Officials have not publicly explained how EMFC was selected, nor published its African track record.

Knežević frames past legal disputes as politically driven, but the central policy question remains: why vest a sweeping mandate in a little-known adviser in a post-crisis environment subject to IMF monitoring?

Reform benchmarks repeatedly cited by donors include competitive bidding, disclosure of beneficial ownership, auditor-verifiable fee structures and court oversight of any SPVs.

Locking in opaque, long-term mandates on the cusp of a Frelimo leadership transition, observers say, is a classic marker of elite capture.

“We are watching a movie we’ve seen before,” a senior Western diplomat in Maputo told our Correspondent, speaking anonymously due to ongoing IMF talks. “The accents may change; the offshore script looks familiar.”

The Ministry of Economy and Finance has not released details of the selection process or EMFC’s credentials. EMFC could not be reached through publicly available channels.