Mr Inappropriate
Regular
To be fair, people do need to be given an opportunity to move the proceeds of their corruption to the tax haven of their choice, and otherwise cover their tracks.
This shit takes time.
AVZ Discussion 2022
- Thread starter GazDix
- Start date
This shit takes time.
Mr Inappropriate
Regular
Sorry mate, you've been rumbled.
FT NEVVVEERRR gets off his rs
Hemicuda
Regular
sounds like something nige would write
I read this article a while ago now, made me puke then as it does now.Some interesting reading regarding China's Road and Belt intiative, old but very relevant.
Just think about why AVZ is stuck, not that hard to understand....
China built Congo a toll road that led straight to the ruling family
Bloomberg News | February 3, 2022 | 10:15 am Battery Metals Intelligence Africa China Cobalt Copper
Former DRC President Joseph Kabila. Photo by the US Department of State, Wikimedia Commons.
For 250 hot and dusty miles, the two-lane highway cuts through central Africa, its path lined with the carcasses of trucks, buses, and minivans. But this modest road holds outsize value for global markets, connecting some of the continent’s richest mines to the rest of the world—most notably, China.
Along this route, thousands of flatbed trucks haul sheets of copper and sacks of cobalt hydroxide, essential for electric cars and other 21st century technologies. Their drivers must pay steep tolls, as much as $900 for a round trip.
And for almost a decade, records indicate, a cut of those tolls flowed to the family of one politician: Joseph Kabila, the former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The toll payments illustrate how Kabila blurred the lines between state and private business, documents reviewed by Bloomberg News suggest.
By striking such deals with his regime, Chinese companies over the past 15 years came to dominate Congo’s mining industry, down to the roads the country’s minerals travel for export.
The relationship with Kabila has been of strategic benefit to China in its economic rivalry with the U.S. And it has helped Congo, a nation of 105 million, become Africa’s largest producer of copper and the world’s biggest source of cobalt. Yet, as on much of the continent, a foreign power and a country’s elite, not the general population, have reaped the benefits of natural resources.
Like seams of cobalt, business arrangements around the toll road have long been buried. The trail begins with the company Kabila’s government contracted to rebuild and maintain the highway: state-controlled China Railway Group Ltd., one of the largest construction companies in the world.
Someone needed to collect the tolls that would pay for the roadwork, and there the former president’s family saw an opportunity to cash in. Two management companies, one of which was co-founded by a Kabila family investment firm, have misappropriated $238 million since 2015, allege a pair of audits by Congo’s top anticorruption official seen by Bloomberg. China Railway didn’t respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment. Nor did Kabila or his family. In an email, the Chinese embassy in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, said its government always asks Chinese companies to respect local laws and regulations and to “never interfere in Congolese political affairs.”
The Kabilas’ involvement in the toll road came to light through the biggest leak ever of financial documents from Africa. A consortium of five nongovernmental organizations and 19 media outlets, including Bloomberg, gained access to bank records obtained by the Paris-based Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa and the French news organization Mediapart.
The resulting articles and reports—published under the name “Congo Hold-Up”—demonstrate the extent to which the country’s most powerful family used the Congo unit of Gabon-based Groupe BGFIBank SA to serve its private interests during a period in which at least $138 million in state funds passed through the lender to Kabila’s family and associates. They also show how Chinese companies transferred tens of millions of dollars to the same network. In December, Kabila’s lawyers denied wrongdoing and called the reporting “a campaign of defamation, slanderous denunciations, denigrations, and untruths.”
Two management companies, one of which was co-founded by a Kabila family investment firm, have misappropriated $238 million since 2015, who arrived in Congo a quarter of a century ago and built an array of companies with a hand in the country’s most lucrative industries: infrastructure and the mining of gold, cobalt, copper, tin, and lithium.
Cong also owns the five-star Fleuve Congo Hotel in Kinshasa. Twenty-two stories tall, the glassy building overlooks the compounds of foreign embassies and the homes of many of the country’s richest people, including Kabila, whose main residence in the city is only a few blocks away. Cong, who works out of an office on the hotel grounds, served as president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Congo’s copper and cobalt region from 2008 until 2015, when he became president of the Congo Overseas Chinese Association. He denies any impropriety and says he isn’t a middleman for either Kabila or the Chinese government.
The businessman controls the companies that collect tolls on the mineral highway, one of which he says he acquired from the Kabila family investment firm. Some of this revenue, bank records show, flowed to a company that was used to direct funds to the former president’s relatives and entourage. Although sometimes described in the media as an adviser to the former president, Cong denies any connection to Kabila, beyond occasional meetings at public events.
“Just like any other businessperson in the world, I am free to pursue business opportunities in the DRC or anywhere else in the world, so long as I carry out my activities in compliance with the governing laws,” Cong told the consortium. “That has always been my practice.”
Outside powers have a long history of coveting Congo’s natural resources. It began under Belgian colonial rule and continued during the country’s tumultuous post-independence period, when Congo was caught between sides in the Cold War.
Increased scrutiny of Congo’s mining industry comes after a pivotal moment. Kabila, a former military commander who’d trained in China, assumed power from his father, who was assassinated in 2001. In 2019, Felix Tshisekedi succeeded him as president after the two men made a deal to resolve a disputed election in which another candidate almost certainly won the vote.
Tshisekedi, the son of a well-known opposition politician, initially governed Congo in coalition with Kabila, but he’s since sidelined or co-opted those loyal to his predecessor. Now his administration is revisiting contracts with Chinese and other foreign companies negotiated under Kabila that it views as skewed against the Congolese people.
In the early 2000s, as Congo emerged from years of civil war, China seized an opportunity to buy mines, a process that’s accelerated in recent years. In 2008 the countries agreed that Chinese companies would finance $3 billion worth of infrastructure and build a $3.2 billion copper and cobalt project known as Sicomines, whose tax-free profits would repay the investments.
China Railway teamed up with state-owned Power Construction Corp. of China Ltd., also known as PowerChina. Both companies are major players in President Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road” initiative, which makes investments in infrastructure around the world, partly as a way to project the country’s growing economic power. PowerChina didn’t respond to requests for comment.
That same year, Congo separately awarded a subsidiary of China Railway the first of three no-bid contracts to rebuild its main export and import routes—including the key mining highway, which runs from Kolwezi to the Zambian border. Tolls would pay for the roadwork.
The highways were in desperate need of an upgrade, and China Railway was on the ground and ready. The roads led to riches. Copper and cobalt exports increased more than 50-fold under Kabila, with about 1.3 million tons of metal trucked out of Congo in 2018, his final year in power.
Much of the highway goes by the grand name of National Road 1. In a country with one of the world’s worst road networks, it stands out for a simple reason: It’s paved. Still, there are few streetlights, and accidents are common. Pedestrians and cyclists share the route, transporting food and other goods to Kolwezi, Likasi, and Lubumbashi—cities along the way founded by Belgian colonists near Congo’s biggest mines.
The road runs past dozens of communities that have mostly missed out on the rewards of Congo’s multibillion-dollar mining industry. Makeshift shacks with orange tarpaulin roofs—the same plastic sheets used to keep hand-dug tunnels from collapsing in the rain—signal the homes of Congolese leading migratory lives on the economic fringes of one of the world’s poorest countries, where three-quarters of the population subsists on less than $1.90 a day, the international poverty line.
Judith Kasongo works as a cook and cleaner in Kanyaka, a village along the toll road. She has no clean water to wash her food. “It’s beyond understanding, and as a Congolese it hurts to see all this wealth go outside the country, as we remain in poverty,” says Kasongo, 31. “We see our minerals developing other countries, while in Congo we don’t have enough roads and face so many difficulties.”
In pictures posted on his Twitter feed, Jules Alingete Key looks more like a general than an auditor. He’s often scowling, and he sometimes wears a uniform the sky-blue color of Congo’s flag, accented with epaulets and gold buttons. Alingete is President Tshisekedi’s inspector general of finance, or, as one Congolese magazine described him, “the sheriff of finance and the public good.” He has become an anticorruption crusader, launching investigations into politicians and businessmen who were untouchable under Kabila. He says he faces constant threats from his targets.
As part of his investigations, Alingete has dug into who really profited from Congo’s most important roads. They were supposed to benefit the country as a whole. There would be at least $1.1 billion worth of new and refurbished toll roads: two connected segments in the Katanga region and another from Kinshasa to the country’s main port of Matadi.
Instead, a large portion of the $757 million in tolls collected on the mining route from 2010 through 2020 vanished, according to the inspector general’s office. On one leg of the highway, in a five-and-a-half-year period starting in 2015, maintenance spending amounted to only $50 million, less than one-fifth of what was generated in tolls during that time, his auditors found. The inspector general’s conclusion: Hundreds of millions of dollars have been lost to overbilling and embezzlement. “On the ground, these funds were not used for roads,” the agency told the consortium, describing a “mechanism of overcharging.”
Alingete identified the culprits: the two toll operators, which were entitled to keep only 10% of the fees collected. One, a company called Société de Gestion Routière du Congo, or SGR, misappropriated $121 million from April 2015 through 2020, according to an audit report seen by the consortium and verified by Alingete.
The Kabilas have a long association with SGR. So does Cong, the Chinese businessman. China Railway initially owned SGR in a joint venture with the Kabila family investment firm, which took full control in April 2015, records show. Yet, 10 days before that ownership change, Cong had represented the company in renewing its toll concession with the Congolese government. He says that SGR’s absent legal representative, who was a senior China Railway manager, had authorized him to sign the contract.
Cong says he acquired SGR in November 2016, though Congo’s corporate registry didn’t reflect the transfer until this year, after the consortium sent him questions. He said he paid the Kabilas no money and instead assumed an undisclosed amount of debt that the presidential family’s company owed China Railway. Cong didn’t provide any documentation for the transaction or the debt.
In that same five-and-a-half-year period, $117 million disappeared from the road’s other toll operator, Société de Gestion de Péage au Congo, or Sopeco, Alingete’s auditors found in a separate report. Cong owns that company, too. The audits don’t cover what happened before 2015, though most of the funds intended for roadwork also “went up in smoke” in the preceding years, the inspector general’s office found.
Like SGR, Sopeco has ties to the Kabilas. From 2013 through January 2016, the two toll operators made 44 payments worth a total of $10.4 million to a company called Congo Construction Co., which delivered more than $30 million to people and entities directly linked to the Kabilas,
Bloomberg reported in November. Almost all the money from the toll-road businesses was withdrawn from BGFI in cash, documents show.
“These payments created clear conflicts of interest and serious risks of fraud and bribery,” according to a report by the Sentry, a Washington-based anticorruption group that was part of the “Congo Hold-Up” consortium.
BGFI’s Congo unit was itself a Kabila family business: The former president’s brother was its chief executive officer, and his sister owned 40% of the bank until 2018, when both were forced out amid accumulating scandals resulting from an earlier data leak by a whistleblower. Before her shares were reclaimed by BGFI’s Gabonese headquarters, Kabila’s sister drew up an abortive plan to sell her stake to three new shareholders, including Cong, who would have paid $2.9 million for a 7.5% interest, bank records show. Cong said he wasn’t aware of such a proposal. In a statement after publication of the first “Congo Hold-Up” stories, the bank acknowledged past governance problems at its Congo branch but questioned the authenticity of the leaked documents.
The consortium found no indications that the Kabila-linked company, Congo Construction, or CCC, did any construction work. Cong said two Sopeco transfers to CCC’s account at BGFI were for a loan agreement and a gravel supply deal, but he didn’t know why SGR sent almost $8 million to the company, because the payments occurred before he took over the business. Cong has other connections to CCC, which was owned by another Chinese businessman. His hotel and the company share the same address. In an email, a bank official described CCC and the Fleuve Congo Hotel “as sister companies housed in the same building.”
Bloomberg couldn’t verify all the figures from the government reports, and Alingete didn’t respond to multiple requests for the complete audit documents. In emails to the consortium, Cong denied the inspector general’s allegations, saying he’d provided documentation showing all the money was spent appropriately, and he considers the matter closed.
L’Agence Congolaise des Grands Travaux, the government agency that oversees most of Congo’s biggest infrastructure projects, including toll roads, told the consortium it isn’t aware that either toll-road company engaged “in any cases of corruption or other improprieties.” But, according to the audit reports, Alingete has urged the government to cancel the contracts held by Sopeco and SGR and replace them with “a much more responsible partner.”
In the waning days of the Kabila administration, Cong won extensions on his concessions to collect tolls on the mineral highway. The bounty would continue into 2025 for one stretch of road and to 2043 on the other, the audits reveal. The companies also signed contracts for tolls and roadwork on two other mineral supply routes that could amount to half a billion dollars.
Alingete’s investigation could threaten Cong’s franchise. But for now, his contracts survive, and business has never been better. Congo’s mining ministry reported last year that copper exports were on track to break all records.
(By William Clowes and Michael Kavanagh)
Heavens knows how much revenue the DRC has lost thru corrupt entities over the past 30yrs or so since the chinese entities arrived on their shores, this article is just a tip of the ice berg, really makes my blood boil.
Common theme, KABILA, CONG the corruptors, Alingete the bull dog chasing justice, Felix the pussy cat, doing what he does best....
Maybe @Spikerama can use some of these catch phrases to spice up the twitter tirade.......
"Their drivers must pay steep tolls, as much as $900 for a round trip"........
"And for almost a decade, records indicate, a cut of those tolls flowed to the family of one politician: Joseph Kabila, the former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo."......
"The relationship with Kabila has been of strategic benefit to China in its economic rivalry with the U.S. And it has helped Congo, a nation of 105 million, become Africa’s largest producer of copper and the world’s biggest source of cobalt."
"where three-quarters of the population subsists on less than $1.90 a day, the international poverty line."....
" The trail begins with the company Kabila’s government contracted to rebuild and maintain the highway: state-controlled China Railway Group Ltd., one of the largest construction companies in the world.
"Two management companies, one of which was co-founded by a Kabila family investment firm, have misappropriated $238 million since 2015......
"Increased scrutiny of Congo’s mining industry comes after a pivotal moment. Kabila, a former military commander who’d trained in China,".............
"As part of his investigations, Alingete has dug into who really profited from Congo’s most important roads. They were supposed to benefit the country as a whole. There would be at least $1.1 billion worth of new and refurbished toll roads: two connected segments in the Katanga region and another from Kinshasa to the country’s main port of Matadi."
"Instead, a large portion of the $757 million in tolls collected on the mining route from 2010 through 2020 vanished
""Alingete identified the culprits: the two toll operators, which were entitled to keep only 10% of the fees collected. One, a company called Société de Gestion Routière du Congo, or SGR, misappropriated $121 million from April 2015 through 2020, according to an audit report seen by the consortium and verified by Alingete.".......
"The Kabilas have a long association with SGR. So does Cong "..........
"Cong didn’t provide any documentation for the transaction or the debt.
In that same five-and-a-half-year period, $117 million disappeared from the road’s other toll operator, Société de Gestion de Péage au Congo, or Sopeco, Alingete’s auditors found in a separate report. Cong owns that company, too. The audits don’t cover what happened before 2015, though most of the funds intended for roadwork also “went up in smoke” in the preceding years, the inspector general’s office found."
" Cong denied the inspector general’s allegations, saying he’d provided documentation showing all the money was spent appropriately, and he considers the matter closed............
"Alingete’s investigation could threaten Cong’s franchise. But for now, his contracts survive, and business has never been better. Congo’s mining ministry reported last year that copper exports were on track to break all records......
When will the penny drop and DRC locals realise China is only interested in raping the minerals but doesnt give a fuck about the lifestyle of the locals ?
When will the penny drop and DRC locals realise that DRC govt has been a traitor to their own people for so many years and wannabe Felix is just full of shit ?
Election .............December 2023.
Its a fork in the road.
DRC locals need to choose their next president wisely if they want to change the common cycle of poverty / corruption into prosperity and freedom.
imo
Spikerama
Regular
I read this article a while ago now, made me puke then as it does now.
Heavens knows how much revenue the DRC has lost thru corrupt entities over the past 30yrs or so since the chinese entities arrived on their shores, this article is just a tip of the ice berg, really makes my blood boil.
Common theme, KABILA, CONG the corruptors, Alingete the bull dog chasing justice, Felix the pussy cat, doing what he does best....
View attachment 30690
Maybe @Spikerama can use some of these catch phrases to spice up the twitter tirade.......
"Their drivers must pay steep tolls, as much as $900 for a round trip"........
"And for almost a decade, records indicate, a cut of those tolls flowed to the family of one politician: Joseph Kabila, the former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo."......
"The relationship with Kabila has been of strategic benefit to China in its economic rivalry with the U.S. And it has helped Congo, a nation of 105 million, become Africa’s largest producer of copper and the world’s biggest source of cobalt."
"where three-quarters of the population subsists on less than $1.90 a day, the international poverty line."....
" The trail begins with the company Kabila’s government contracted to rebuild and maintain the highway: state-controlled China Railway Group Ltd., one of the largest construction companies in the world.
"Two management companies, one of which was co-founded by a Kabila family investment firm, have misappropriated $238 million since 2015......
"Increased scrutiny of Congo’s mining industry comes after a pivotal moment. Kabila, a former military commander who’d trained in China,".............
"As part of his investigations, Alingete has dug into who really profited from Congo’s most important roads. They were supposed to benefit the country as a whole. There would be at least $1.1 billion worth of new and refurbished toll roads: two connected segments in the Katanga region and another from Kinshasa to the country’s main port of Matadi."
"Instead, a large portion of the $757 million in tolls collected on the mining route from 2010 through 2020 vanished
"Alingete identified the culprits: the two toll operators, which were entitled to keep only 10% of the fees collected. One, a company called Société de Gestion Routière du Congo, or SGR, misappropriated $121 million from April 2015 through 2020, according to an audit report seen by the consortium and verified by Alingete.".......
"The Kabilas have a long association with SGR. So does Cong "..........
"Cong didn’t provide any documentation for the transaction or the debt.
In that same five-and-a-half-year period, $117 million disappeared from the road’s other toll operator, Société de Gestion de Péage au Congo, or Sopeco, Alingete’s auditors found in a separate report. Cong owns that company, too. The audits don’t cover what happened before 2015, though most of the funds intended for roadwork also “went up in smoke” in the preceding years, the inspector general’s office found."
" Cong denied the inspector general’s allegations, saying he’d provided documentation showing all the money was spent appropriately, and he considers the matter closed............
"Alingete’s investigation could threaten Cong’s franchise. But for now, his contracts survive, and business has never been better. Congo’s mining ministry reported last year that copper exports were on track to break all records......
When will the penny drop and DRC locals realise China is only interested in raping the minerals but doesnt give a fuck about the lifestyle of the locals ?
When will the penny drop and DRC locals realise that DRC govt has been a traitor to their own people for so many years and wannabe Felix is just full of shit ?
Election .............December 2023.
Its a fork in the road.
DRC locals need to choose their next president wisely if they want to change the common cycle of poverty / corruption into prosperity and freedom.
View attachment 30692
imo
Haha, that's perfect timing mate. I had just worked up another idea, this time on China and was about to research the copy points.
Good reading. Will pour over this before bed and finish the ad off in the morning.
Cheers.
CashKing
Regular
I so wanna tell Hoots that Freehold is busy with he’s EX WIFE
…. I know he’s grudge with DRC but FFS….
GLTAH
Après les ballons espions chinois, Washington prêt à abattre le contrat chinois en RDC - L'info qui fait échos
La publication par l’Inspection générale des finances (IGF) du rapport sur le contrat chinois, signé en 2008 entre la République Démocratique du Congo et un <a class="mh-excerpt-more"...
econewsrdc.com
Samus
Top 20
“AVZ has been invited by the DRC government to execute this agreement”
AVZ Minerals and DATHCOM from the genesis of the creation of the DR Congo Battery Council (DBC)?
February 26, 2023Kiki Kienge
By Kiki Kienge
In November 2021, AVZ Minerals represented by Nigel Ferguson General Manager of AVZ, Balthazar Tshiseke Deputy General Manager and Director of Dathcom, in particular Serge Ngandu General Affairs Director of AVZ's Dathcom Mining subsidiary, was a stakeholder in Africa Business Forum. It was notably in the presence of HE the Head of State, Felix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo and his Zambian counterpart, HE Hakainde Hichilema .
The forum was led by the Minister of Industry, Julien Paluku in the presence of other members of the Congolese and Zambian government, in particular Mrs. Ève Bazaiba Masudi Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Madame Antoinette Nsamba Kalambayi Minister of Mines.
The objective of the forum was to foster the development of an industrial value chain and market for batteries, in the DRC in particular and in Africa in general.
Here is the statement of Nigel Ferguson General Manager of AVZ Minerals during this Forum in Kinshasa:
“The signing of this pledge provides a solid platform for the development of a battery minerals industry in the DRC, which AVZ wholeheartedly supports, and is also an incredibly significant development as we enter the final stages of obtaining the mining license and permits for the Manono project. The DRC and Africa are strategically positioned to play a central role in the global transition to clean energy and de-carbonization and the Manono project will go a long way towards improving the lot of the Congolese people, which AVZ Minerals wholeheartedly supports. . »
At the end of this forum, the Congolese government as well as the technical and financial partners; CEA, AFC and BADEA have signed an agreement for the development of a battery industry in the DRC.
Subsequently, AVZ was invited by the Congolese government to execute this agreement signed at the Africa Business Forum:
"We are delighted to be the only up-and-coming mining company to have been invited to join the new Battery Council of DRC, which will be chaired by the President of the DRC and the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, as well as a myriad of other important organizations. Said Nigel Ferguson CEO of AVZ Minerals.
A roadmap in particular was agreed at the Africa Business Forum, which will consist of a public and private partnership to support the Congolese government for the implementation of the Manono lithium battery industrial value chain.
The Forum's main objective was to plan for the creation of a Battery Council in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DBC) and the construction of a SEZ (Special Economic Zone) between Greater Katanga and Zambia for the realization of an industrial supply chain of sustainable lithium-based mineral batteries from Manono.
The members and composition of the DRC Battery Council (DBC) are as follows: Steering Committee: The President of the DRC and the Executive Secretary of the ECA, as well as prominent businessmen.
Members: Afreximbank, AFC, AfDB, BADEA, ALSF, UN Global Compact, selected NGOs.
Audience: Ministers of Industry, Mines, economy, environment, science and technology of the DRC.
Private: Chairman of the Board of Directors of Gecamines; AVZ Minerals ; Federation of Congo Enterprises (FEC ); African Association of Automobile Manufacturers; Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund; Bosch.
University: Steinbeis University-Berlin; University of Lubumbashi (Polytechnic); University of Zambia (UNZA); University of the Witwatersrand (SA); University of Mines and Technology (Ghana).
Account Suspended
kongopress.com
Samus
Top 20
#Manono #Lithium Point of view of Mr @TonyBolamba, ex-governor of Ecuador: "By closely examining this matter in my humble opinion I understand that @AvzMinerals is right"
I am a statesman and one of the few who interact. Looking closely at this matter in my humble opinion I understand that AVZ is right. In the next few days I will be at a press conference where I will discuss various issues affecting the State. Believe me that #AVZ will be brought up! TCB
Thunderpony
27 µg per 100 mL
Called it. Spike in interest a few months ago.
After the Chinese spy balloons, Washington ready to shoot down the Chinese contract in the DRC
February 24, 2023 TIGHANA MASIALA 0
The IGF Jules Alingete, the man who shakes up Chinese interests in Congolese mines
The publication by the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) of the report on the Chinese contract, signed in 2008 between the Democratic Republic of Congo and a group of Chinese companies, brought back to Congolese soil the great economic battle being waged by the United States and China globally. In Kinshasa and everywhere else, certain observers suspect an American influence behind the action carried out by the IGF. It is therefore not for nothing that the Chinese Embassy in the DRC did not wait long to react to what it describes as "prejudices" of the IGF, considering that the content "does not correspond to reality and "cannot be considered credible and has no constructive value". That says it all. This means that after the controversy surrounding the Chinese spy balloons intercepted over American skies, Washington seeks to shoot down the Chinese contract in the DRC. Main ally of the United States, the European Union delegated, last Tuesday, to the Minister of Mines, Antoinette N'Samba Kalambayi, its head of the Delegation in the DRC, Jean-Marc Châta Everything is explained.
Earlier this year, the world learned via a press release from the United States Department of Defense that an unidentified spy balloon was spotted and shot down over North American airspace.
Beijing, for its part, said that Washington also sent balloons to spy on its airspace.
Indeed, the diplomatic tension, generated by this affair of the spy balloons, has come to poison the already tense relations between the two countries in recent years.
As the balloon saga continues globally, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it's the latest IGF report on the 2008 Chinese contract that fuels the headlines.Nicknamed "contract of the century", designed on the win-win model, according to its initiators, the conclusions of the IGF have highlighted a predatory enterprise where the interests of the DRC have been totally
In reality, it is the Chinese presence in the mines of the DRC which is called into question. For what interest?Who benefits from this IGF report? So many questions that torment the minds.
Coincidence or simple coincidence? No one can establish the correlation. However, the last trips made by Jules Alingete, boss of the IGF, to the land of Uncle Sam, prompts reflection. And especially when we know the intentions of Washington on the strategic minerals of the DRC, in the context of the upheaval of the current world order.
DRC, battlefield between Washington and Beijing
Between the two countries, the battle is fought over global hegemony. The world's leading economic power, the United States is lagging behind China, in terms of access to strategic minerals for which the DRC has a good natural endowment. However, in Congolese mines, Beijing has a serious advantage, by ensuring control of the copper and cobalt sectors.Just recently, China has again got its hands on the zinc of Upper Katanga, not counting Manono lithium, in Tanganyika province, for which China is fighting to properly position its mining major, ZijinMining Company.
This means that the United States is in a catch-up strategy by over cutting China's interests in Congolese mines. Washington uses all the means at its disposal which, for some, would also include the IGF.
One thing is true: Washington will not let China or Russia control the immense mining resources of the DRC. It is ready to fall back on all the maps at its disposal.
From this point of view, it would therefore not be impossible for Washington to have pushed Jules Alingete to dig up the old disputes around these 2008 contracts in order to discredit the Chinese and, in turn, the supporters of the then regime, now opponents. On the eve of the elections, the strategy would pay off to the regime in place in Kinshasa. The objective could be multiple, including ousting the Chinese, deterring Russia and creating a boulevard facilitating the victory of the current regime in the next elections.
A great ally of the United States, the European Union is already working with the Congolese Government. Last Tuesday, Jean-Marc Châtaigner, Head of the EU Delegation in the DRC, went to meet with the National Minister of Mines, Antoinette N'Samba Kalambayi.Objective of the exchanges: to achieve the construction of a strategic partnership in the processing of the minerals of the DRC. A way to already put in place the elements of the puzzle to better
CF
Renegotiation of the Chinese contract: the IGF Jules Alingete, Washington's armed arm to eat the Chinese?
On September 20, 2022, while the 77th UN Ordinary Session was held in New York, Jules Alingete received in the same city the "Forbes Best of Africa 2022" award instituted by the American magazine Forbes, founded by Bertie Charles Forbes in 1917. head office is located on 5th Avenue in New York. Its annual ranking identifies the most successful companies and the most famous personalities in the world. We give it to you in a thousand: he was awarded the famous "Forbes Best of Africa 2022" Prize in New York. Still by chance? While those who can respond practice there, the "additional investigation" required by the IGF the day before the "United States/Africa" summit in mid-December 2022 should be noted.
Is it a coincidence? Not at all, because in April 2022, Jules Alingete participated in a North-South Investment Forum organized by Anthony Lebukse in Houston with the theme "Insto draw inspiration from the American model to boost the industrialization of the Congo area". The stated objective was "the rapprochement between Congolese decision-makers and American investors, the mixing of business opportunities between the countries of North America and those of the Congo basin, as well as the strengthening of the American economic presence in Congo".
Of course, there was talk of mining in the DRC with, in the background, the reinterpretation of the Sino-Congolese contract.
In August 2022, passing through Kinshasa as part of the Eastern Crisis, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken alluded to it. In the State Department's statement setting the opinion on this visit, the spokesman stressed that "the United States supports the decision of the DRC government to review mining contracts and greater accountability in the sector" and encourages "the DRC to continue its collaboration and work on tax transparency, labor rights and compliance with environmental, social and governance standards for the mining sector". Indeed, since almost the announcement of the signing of the Sino-Congolese contract in 2007, Washington has never appreciated what is considered a "Chinese intrusion" into mining in the DRC, an activity monopolized by Western companies for more than a century.
To do this, continue the spokesman for the State Department, Washington made USD 30 million available to Kinshasa "to help the DRC promote responsible and sustainable mining practices".
And now, in September 2022, on a 60-day investigation mission in the former Katanga, an IGF team will not only summon the IGF's general management without delay, but will also decide on the suspension of customs exemption duties when it had neither the competence nor the right.
Where was he, Jules Alingete, when his team was violating all established rules? The observation to which all these coincidences lead makes a black hand suspected in the bravado of the IGF. She would be American that no one would suspect.
However, the Congolese have realized this for themselves: since the 1985s, there have been no large-scale European or American investments in this country. Worse, the political transition that began in 1990 with the false massacre of students on the Lubumbashi University campus (born in 1963, Jules Alingete was 27 at the time) had led to the suspension of structural cooperation. Worse, the AFDL war followed by the assassination of Laurent-Désiré Kabila as well as the advent of Joseph Kabila in full "balcanization" - since each belligerent independently administered the territory under his control - was a good pretext for Westerners to accentuate disinvestment.
It was finally the Sino-Congolese contract that restored faith and boosted the morale of the Congolese in their country to the great displeasure, unfortunately of the Congolese and foreign forces acquired in the dismemberment scheme.
From there to assume the instrumentalization - perhaps voluntary, perhaps non-voluntary - of the IGF to punish the Chinese for preventing the "balkanization" plan from being realized - there is only one quick step.
Enough to encourage, or rather urge Jules Alingete and all those who, consciously or unconsciously, participated in the black mass on February 15, 2023 to "eat Chinese", to learn to be wary of the gift of modern-day Greeks.
SM (Tribune from yabisonews.cd)
If any article reading relies on "it's not impossible" for it's core premise, it's a conspiracy theory, not journalism
Carlos Danger
Top 20
Nigel has repeatedly said that ownership wasn't an issue with the licence. He is clear in his letter to the MoM that he wants the initial decrees to stand. If this was just about the MoM covering herself for being involved with the illegal sale of the 15% from Cominiere to Zijin then surely Nigel would welcome that.
And the idea that the MoM is breaking the law in a far more obvious way by illegally cancelling lawful decrees using justifications that aren't in the mining code to override a smaller previous error just doesn't make sense to me. The MoM was more than happy with the ownership situation when she issued the initial decrees. At the end of the day AVZ control Dathcom so the validity of the 'disputed' 15% shouldn't impact whether the project can move forward.
Something has changed. Most likely the MoM in her role as technical guardian of the public company of Cominiere is trying to facilitate their attempt to sell off a state asset. Which would be either the 15% of Dathcom or the northern 82 carrés of PE13359 that Zijin wanted in their offer to Cominiere that was set to expire less than 1 month before the MoM issued the new decrees imo
Winenut
Go AVZ!
Sorry late to the party...... but that is fucking gold!!!
Does anyone know why Freehold disappeared from here and the crapper around the time the suspension started?I so wanna tell Hoots that Freehold is busy with he’s EX WIFE
I know he’s grudge with DRC but FFS….
GLTAH
DRC is a member of ICC
A ruling by the ICC in favour of AVZ what put pressure on FT to abide by the decision .
Politically and International reputation at stake .
He follows the ICC decision without the fall out with his ministers.
Carlos Danger
Top 20
My initial thought was that there was some sort of legal reason the MoM did this. If Cominiere did accept Zijin's offer then the DRC is faced with delivering on one of the outcomes in the offer or facing a breach of contract against a public company. The MoM would have an obligation to try and minimise the potential damages against the state.
The timing of Cominiere's complaints against AVZ being in early December looks to me like the first act of trying to fulfil their part of the deal. Those complaints were within the 60 day window given by Zijin and are what the MoM cited in the new decrees. If her intention was to take everything from us or give us all of PE13359 it would have already happened.
Clearly there is something that the DRC government wants to adjust about the project. The favourable opinions deadlines mean nothing at this point. I think that when it boils down to it the MoM believes AVZ can be pushed around into accepting Zijin in Dathcom or losing the north. That's why Nigel reacted the way he did imo. Shows we won't take any shit and if there are to be negotiations they begin from the strongest position possible for AVZ.
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