After the acquittal of Vital Kamerhe, former chief of staff of President Felix Tshisekedi, questions arise about the funds disbursed by the State and the prefabricated houses for which Kamerhe had been convicted, just two years ago, in the first proceeding to 20 years of forced labor. The shipments do exist, but are rotting in several ports, particularly in Tanzania, where the authorities are threatening to sell them at auction. These houses had been commissioned for the military and police. The cargo abandoned in Tanzania was destined for the city of Bukavu, in South Kivu.
With our correspondent in Kinshasa, Pascal Mulegwa
These seemingly abandoned containers have become cumbersome for Tanzanian port authorities. Despite multiple correspondence sent to the Congolese government, no one has come forward to claim the 216 containers.
They have been stuck since 2020 in warehouses in Ubungo district in Dar es Salaam. At the end of June, the Tanzanian consulate for the Katanga region approached the governor of Lualaba province. In the correspondence that we have consulted, the consulate announces the decision of the port authorities to put them up for sale, “ since no entity follows their storage “.
The related customs duties had not been paid by the Congolese State, nor the Samibo Congo company of the Lebanese businessman Samih Djamal who had obtained the controversial contract. Added to this are significant storage costs and two-year penalties. Huge sums. And it’s not just these shipments, other containers are blocked by customs services in Angola and Matadi in the DRC.
On the Congolese side, sources close to the Prime Minister assure that the file is ” being processed at the Ministry of Finance », which RFI could not verify.
After the acquittal of Vital Kamerhe, all the parties were to meet to draw the consequences of the trial, and therefore decide the fate of the containers, say the lawyers. Which so far has not been done.
For Billy Kambale, the secretary general of Kamerhe’s party, this is a development that reinforces the innocence of the former director of the president’s cabinet. ” It was a lawsuit that was intended to weaken the momentum that the 100-day emergency program would take. It is clear that if this program had been carried out, especially in its prefabricated house component, Tshisekedi would have done in two years what Mobutu did not succeed in 32 years. “, he believes.