In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), civil society is demanding more transparency in the management of public finances.
The Public Expenditure Observatory (ODEP), an NGO specializing in public finance, warns in particular of an irregular payment of around 50 million US dollars in favor of the commercial debt, over the past six months, as reported by Valery Madianga , spokesperson for the Public Expenditure Observatory, joined by our correspondent in Kinshasa, Pascal Mulegwa.
“The state should in principle pay 48.8 million dollars, but at the end of June 2022 the government paid the commercial debt around 98.8 million dollars. We see an overshoot of 202.4 %, which is totally irregular. We say that budget overruns usually have signs of corruption or embezzlement of public funds. There is a serious problem.
We know well that in our country, regarding the issue of public debt, there are always retro-commissions and with this pace, when you look at the trajectory, we could arrive at more than 200 million US dollars that could be paid at the end of the 2022 financial year. For us, this is really a concern, which is why we are asking that the control bodies be able to play their role, in particular the Court of Auditors, which should check who these creditors are because here, for us, the stage of the 50 million dollars does indeed present signs of corruption “, he underlines.
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