Now Cuba declares Parmalat claim false

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

HAVANA, Cuba: Cuba's only bulk food importer, Alimport, said on Monday that Italian food conglomerate Parmalat's claim the Communist-run nation owes it tens of millions of dollars for powdered milk was false, according to a report by Reuters.

"We do not have any debts outstanding with Parmalat," said Pedro Alvarez, president of state-run Alimport.

Parmalat, until two weeks ago one of Italy's most important companies, has been rocked by scandal since the discovery of a 12-billion-dollar hole in its accounts.

Italian prosecutors have accused Parmalat founder Calisto Tanzi of misappropriating $1 billion from the company over the past decade, an order by investigating magistrates showed.

They also accused Tanzi of working with six current or former Parmalat executives and two outside auditors to commit several offenses -- including false accounting and fraud -- to hide the company's losses.

One case under investigation involves millions of dollars worth of powdered milk that Parmalat subsidiary Bonlat claims to have sold Cuba through Singapore-based Camfield Pte. Ltd.

"We never signed any contract with a Singapore affiliate of Parmalat," Alvarez said, adding his company recently began importing around $700,000 a month worth of food through one of Parmalat's Chilean operations, but was on time with payments.

Reuters said on Monday that they have obtained part of transcript of an interrogation by Milan prosecutors of a Parmalat accountant -- Gianfranco Bocchi, in which he admitted the milk sales to Cuba were phony.

"We used to buy fictitiously from Camfield in Singapore (after a while I understood it was connected to Parmalat) ... to then sell fictitiously to the Cuban company," Bocchi told the prosecutors.

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