Over $3 Million Stolen From LAM Mozambique Through Flight Ticket Points Of Sale

Summary

• Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) has lost over $3 million through embezzlement practices within the airline.
• Investigations are underway as LAM collects all POS systems from its 20 ticket sales points to trace the missing money.
• Fuel shortages also caused flight disruptions for LAM over the weekend.

The restructuring project manager of Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) has revealed that the national carrier lost over $3 million, which was stolen through various air ticket sales points. The company has already launched internal investigations to trace where the money is going.

$3 million lost within a month

As reported by Lusa, the project manager, Sérgio Matos, denounced the embezzlement practices within the airline while speaking at a press conference in Maputo on Monday, February 12. He stated that the airline’s cash had been embezzled through various ticket sales stores and points of sale (POS).

Together with its internal security, LAM began collecting all POS systems from its 20 ticket sales points, and as of Sunday, February 11, about 81 had been collected. According to Matos, the heads of some stores did not recognize some machines and had no idea who they belonged to.

The company began investigating the matter nearly two weeks ago after realizing that the money it was receiving did not correspond to the number of tickets sold. Further evaluations revealed that the company recorded losses of approximately two to three million dollars in the last three months. In December alone, it had a deficit of $3.2 million.

Irregularities in cash collection and fuel supply

LAM is currently undergoing a restructuring process after years of significant losses and operational challenges. In April 2023, the Mozambican government appointed the South African consultancy firm Fly Modern Ark (FMA) to manage LAM. The national carrier has seen a turn of fortunes over the last few months, reducing its debt by over $60 million and resuming long-haul flights to Portugal.

This new development comes in light of FMA’s efforts to bring the national company to operational stability. However, the internal investigation also raised suspicions of money being stolen during cash collections. In some cases, deposits are made nearly three days after the money is collected from stores. Matos was quoted by Lusa saying,

“The collection of cash is carried out by security companies. When we tried to find out, at LAM points of sale, how it is done and when they receive it, we found that, sometimes, the deposit is made three days later, which means that money is collected from the company and then it is stored somewhere for two or three days, and after that comes the bordereau.”

FMA also discovered irregularities in the procurement of fuel at LAM. It discovered that unusually large amounts of fuel were being purchased for the aircraft. “If an aircraft has a maximum fuel capacity of 80 tonnes, how is it possible for the same aircraft to be fueled with 95 tonnes? Where are the remaining 15 tonnes?” queried Matos.

Flight delays due to fuel shortages

The FMA director also took the time to shed light on the flight disruptions faced by LAM Mozambique passengers over the weekend. Club of Mozambique reported that five international and domestic flights were delayed on Sunday due to a lack of fuel. Flightradar24 shows that one flight (TM354) operated by LAM subsidiary Moçambique Expresso from Maputo (MPM) to Harare (HRE) was delayed by over six hours.

Local reports suggested that LAM was not supplied with fuel by local petroleum companies due to debts exceeding $10 million. The national carrier reportedly owes Mozambique’s Petromoc nearly $9.4 million and Puma Energy over $600,000. The project manager acknowledged a debt with Petromoc of about $70 million, which had accumulated over a year.

Despite the existence of this debt, Matos highlighted that the Sunday flight disruptions were due to fuel shortages from the suppliers rather than the lack of payments. He added that this is the only debt the airline has with a petroleum company, and it has already started paying it off.

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