Chinese Party Profits 5x Expected in Sino-Congolese Contract with support from civil society and IGF Report
The Public Expenditure Observatory (ODEP), the African Association for the Defense of Human Rights (ASADHO), the Congolese Association for Access to Justice (ACAJ) and the Economic Governance and Democracy Network (REGED) , Congolese civil society organization in the fields of public finance and human rights, both civil and political and economic, social and cultural, exercising their citizen control, have taken note of the recent report of the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) on Sino-Congolese Mines (SICOMINES).
Like the IGF, these NGOs believe that the circumstances at the time and the terms of the signing of this contract were unfavorable to the DRC.
As a result, the 4 NGOs castigate “the complacency with which the public authorities negotiated this agreement which clearly sells off the resources of the DRC.”
They note that the Chinese side has earned at least more than five times the revenue expected at the start of the project, without any compensation commensurate with the profits made.
In addition, they engage “the respective responsibility of all the public authorities who were involved in the conclusion and management of the aforesaid Convention: from the President of the Republic to the executives, through the Prime Ministers, the Ministers whose sectors are concerned , the Congolese Negotiators, the Project Coordinator as well as the officials of the Congolese Agency for Major Works and those of GECAMINES.”
For ODEP, ACAJ, ASADHO and REGED, it is unacceptable that the Congolese can continue to wallow in misery, while their resources benefit foreign companies.
Furthermore, the 4 NGOs recommend the renegotiation of the Agreement to readjust or rebalance the obligations and gains of the two parties and make them correspond to the values of the respective contributions.
It should be noted that among the findings raised by the IGF in its report, SICOMINES has raised funds for 5 billion from Chinese banks but the DRC has only benefited from 822 million USD of infrastructure identified and communicated by SICOMINES.
In these 822 million USD, there are, in particular, overcharged infrastructures (Boulevard du 30 JUIN: 6 km for 46 million USD; Hôpital du Cinquantenaire: 114 million USD; Avenue Sendwe: 2 km for 5 million USD; Avenue in front of the Martyrs Stadium: 1 KM for 25 million USD; Boulevard Triomphal: 1.2 KM for 36 million USD; Bukavu stadium not completed: 10 million USD; Bunia stadium not built: 10 million USD and Stadium unbuilt Goma: 10 million USD).
