The General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) denounced, Thursday, February 16, a ” imbalance in the contract signed between the Congolese government and the group of Chinese companies, in the management of certain natural resources of the DRC. The collaboration agreement was signed in 2008 and notably gave rise to the creation of a Sino-Congolese joint venture, Sicomines. But the IGF detected irregularities.
With our correspondent in Kinshasa, Patient Ligodi
Based on an agreement that was supposed to lead to a “natural resources against infrastructure” program, the Sicomines was launched with a registered capital of 100 million dollars. According to the conclusions of the IGF report, this amount was simply disproportionate to the corporate purpose of the joint venture.
He believes that everything is unbalanced and that it was necessary from the outset to assess the contributions in mineral deposits made by the Gecamines, the country’s leading mining company. And this imbalance has continued in operations, says the Inspector General of Finance, Jules Alingete:
” Chinese companies have already received a gain estimated at nearly 10 billion US dollars, while the Republic has only benefited from 822 million dollars in terms of infrastructure. Will it still be necessary, in the 822 million, that we enter in depth to realize that there is no visibility of this sum. »
And according to him, the responsibilities are not only Chinese: “ The glaring imbalance that was observed, the selling off, the squandering of our minerals observed in this contract was also the work of misguided sons of our country, who accompanied Chinese companies in this macabre work against our country. »
In total, this report contains 26 points of irregularities. They will be subject to a verification procedure which will lead, says the IGF, to the proposal of a contract revision document which will be submitted to the government.
► To read also: DRC: a damning report on Sicomines on the government table