Jolino Makelele challenged to present a better project than the “Chinese Contract” by Moise Ekanga
The Minister of Communication and Media, Jolino Makele announced during his press conference on August 27 at the AN 1 of the Ilunkamba government, that the agreement that was signed on April 22, 2008 between the DRC and the Chinese enterprise group (GEC) relating to the development of a mining project and an infrastructure project of a “great contractual disaster” that the country had known was necessary to “put back on the table) for new negotiations.
Faced with this declaration, the Sino-Congolese Program Coordination and Monitoring Office (BCPSC), always headed by Moïse Ekanga, now a senator, made an update sweeping aside the allegations of the door. – government speech that it finds “serious” and harmful to Chinese partners.
While challenging the government spokesperson to present a project signed by the DRC in the mining sector that is better than this 2008 Sino-Congolese convention, the BCPSC communication unit maintains that this partnership model has been praised. both by the Carter Center, in a study, and by the World Bank, which recommended it to other African countries.
“The largest partnership that Gécamines had signed before SICOMINES was with TFM where its stake was 12%. It was the Sino-Congolese mining joint venture (SICOMINES) that enabled us to review old contracts, because it was found that the Republic had not found its account. And it is from this revision that Gécamines was able to see its participation in other partnerships noted, ”insisted the Communication Unit, Coordination and Monitoring Office of the Sino-Congolese Program in its development.
Note that in the SICOMINES joint venture, the Chinese side has 68% of the shares and the DRC, through Gécamines, has 32% of the shares. If the infrastructure project started in 2009 and is carried out by the Large Works Agency, the mining project entered the production stage only in 2016. And since then SICOMINES has recorded profits. “In 2016, earnings flirted with $ 100 million. We tripled this figure in 2017, and we reached $ 400 million in profits in 2018 and 2019, ”said Moïse Ekanga in an interview with the Belgian media La Libre Afrique in August 2020.
In the assets of the infrastructure project, there are several works including the expansion of boulevard du 30 Juin in Kinshasa, the expansion of boulevard Lumumba in Kinshasa, the Cinquantenaire hospital, and many other projects already carried out by the major works agency.
The communication service of the BCPSC even recommends the Parliament to invite the Minister of Communication and Media “to propose another model of partnership better than that negotiated with the Chinese side, given that its serious allegations cast a discredit on the program and is a blow to the image of the partners ”.
It should be noted that the Chinese Contract was finally stopped at 6.6 billion USD, including 3 billion USD for infrastructure and 3.6 billion USD for the mining project. To date, according to Moïse Ekanga, 900 million USD have been invested in infrastructure and 1.8 billion USD in the mining project, notably with SICOMINES.
