The Prosecutor General of Kinshasa-Gombe has opened an investigation into the overcharging of infrastructure works carried out under the Sino-Congolese contract “Mines against infrastructure”, concluded in 2008, under former President Joseph Kabila. Congolese justice takes action after the publication of the report of the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF), which had pointed to financial irregularities so far denied by China.
With our correspondent in Kinshasa, Pascal Mulegwa
At this stage, the prosecutor is only interested in the work carried out, estimated at 822 million US dollars, for around forty declared works. This sum, according to him, does not correspond to the little infrastructure built for a contract in which the Congolese party should have got away with three billion US dollars in infrastructure. The Chinese side, meanwhile, have already pocketed more than triple, according to IGF.
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For the prosecutor, the work is either overcharged, unfinished or not executed, while the costs of implementation have been fully paid. ” Everything leads to presume an embezzlement of public funds », affirms the public prosecutor Robert Kumbu, who is based on the exaggeration of the unit costs of the roads, of certain expenses and the existence of fictitious headings in the invoicing.
He thus requisitioned financial inspectors, technicians from the control office, magistrates and officers of the judicial police, to carry out the counter-expertise. For this investigation, all documents and contracts will be collected from Sicomines, the joint venture born of the Sino-Congolese agreement. The team appointed by the prosecutor should also carry out a raid on the Congolese agency for major works, which validated the invoices.