From bad to worse, the accounts of Mozambique Airlines (LAM) were being damaged by the non-payment of debts by its clients, including the ruling Frelimo party, reports Lusa (via Sapo).

Fly Modern Ark (FMA), the company hired by the government to straighten out its debt, said it had found an initial debt of 1.7 billion meticais. However, by June it was already around 1.2 billion meticais, as a result of collections, payment plans and reconciliation of accounts.

In addition to the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), the debts are owed by state, public and private companies, ministries and the Armed Forces, among others. Among these companies - which were not identified - more than 50 million meticais were owed.

This information was shared with the press by Zita Joaquim, who is responsible for the financial and accounting administration of FMA's management at LAM.

According to LusaFrelimo acknowledges that it is one of the entities off LAM's credit flight list, due to an initial debt estimated at 22 million meticais. Frelimo has paid off five million of the debt, but blames LAM for letting the balance accumulate.

"But the list of entities is long," he stressed, admitting that since June other amounts have been settled, but preferring not to reveal the current amount owed, not least because they have also found proven cases of payments made by clients that were not settled in the company's accounts, which they are investigating.

The FMA took over management of the state-owned airline in April, and acknowledged that LAM had an estimated debt of around 300 million meticais, according to figures provided at the time.

The ongoing strategy to revitalize the company follows years of operational problems related to a reduced fleet and a lack of investment, with a number of non-fatal incidents linked by experts to inefficient aircraft maintenance.