Revealed: Liz Truss lobbied for UK role in gas project linked to Mozambique massacre

By Graham Lanktree | 10/10/2024 06:46 AM EDT

In the summer of 2020, Britain’s then-trade secretary defied her Cabinet colleagues to secure financial support for the controversial development.

Britain's Former Prime Minister Liz Truss speaks during a fringe event on the second day of the annual Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham.

Just 10 months after Liz Truss' intervention, in April 2021, the project was brought to a halt as militants swept through the region. Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images

LONDON — Liz Truss pushed through $1.15 billion in U.K. taxpayer support for a Mozambique gas project now embroiled in allegations of abduction, murder and rape.

Truss’ moves to back the project as trade secretary in the spring of 2020 were opposed by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and many of her Conservative Cabinet colleagues.

Britain’s new Labour government is now weighing whether to continue to offer taxpayer-funded direct loans and guarantees to U.K. exporters and banks supporting French energy major TotalEnergies’ $20 billion liquefied natural gas project in northern Mozambique.

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Last month POLITICO reported that a Mozambican military unit operating out of TotalEnergies’ gatehouse at the gas site in Cabo Delgado massacred at least 97 civilians.

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