La Cominière gives Chinese Zijin great pleasure in the lithium project
KINSHASA, PARIS, BRUSSELS.
Le Soft International n°1550|MONDAY APRIL 11, 2022.
If that's true, it's to sleep on. A real scandal as it now erupts with each dive. This is the bitter observation that one could make. In a letter that sounds like a blaster, the General Inspectorate of Finance reportedly wrote to Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde Kyenge and brought to his particular attention a note on the results of a check on the regularity of the sale of the stakes of Cominière SA, a State Portfolio company, in Dathcom Mining SA. Note ? A real interpellation of the Head of Government...
The case ? Better, the umpteenth case, because they are now legion: the 15% of the shares of the public company La Cominière in the company Dathcom Mining to the Chinese company Zijin Mining, carried out in violation of the legal provisions on the withdrawal of the Statement of Portfolio Companies.
These shares were valued at US$150,000,000, they were sold at US$33,440,000. Shortfall: US$116,560,000.
Then, the squandering of the proceeds of this sale. Of these US$33,440,000 received and, in collusion with the Board of Directors of Cominière SA, the managers of this public company have already distributed US$6,800,000.
The reasons, in their eyes, are not lacking: payment of snacks, fees, commissions and remuneration to those who contributed to the realization of this operation.
And, since there are no two without three, free transfer of 5% of the shares of Cominière SA in the company Dathcom Minging SA for the benefit of the company Dathomir Mining Sarl. Of which 5% would have been resold for 85 million $US. A pattern that recalls many others...
WHAT WILL THE PRIME MINISTER DO?
In this leaked letter, three points stand out clearly and are bolded and underlined: “sale of the State's mining heritage”; “dissipation of the proceeds from the sale of 15% of the shares of Cominière SA in the company Dathcom Minging”; "transfer free of charge...". In short, a scandal awaiting an exemplary sanction.
The IGF, which knows how to call a spade a spade, suspects three officials: the Managing Director ai of Cominière SA, Athanase Mwamba Misao, the members of the Board of Directors of Cominière who allegedly authorized these operations, the Minister of Portfolio Adèle Kahinda Mayna.
According to circles close to the case, it is following the recommendations issued by HE the President of the Republic, Head of State, for the supervision of all the financial operations of the State, (that) the Inspection Générale des Finances has just carried out a mission to control the sale of the holdings of the company Cominière SA, State Portfolio Company, in the company Dathcom Mining SA specializing in the production of lithium according to mission order no. 54/PR/IGF/lG CS/JAK/BRF/2022 of February 16, 2022 followed by mission order n°73/PR/IGF/IG-CS/JAK/BEP/2022 of February 22, 2022.
After this control mission, three important facts jump to the eye and for which “we seize your authority for decision”, writes the mail.
These are: selling off the State's mining heritage. The transfer of 15% of the shares of the public company La Cominière in the company Dathcom Mining to the company Zijin Mining was carried out in violation of the legal provisions on the withdrawal of the State from holding companies.
In fact, the 15% of the shares of Cominière SA valued at US$150,000,000 (one hundred and fifty million US dollars) were sold to Zijin Mining for a total value of US$33,440,000 (US dollars). Americans thirty-three million four hundred and forty thousand). This results in a shortfall of US$116,560,000 (US dollars one hundred and sixteen million five hundred and sixty thousand)”; “Waste of the proceeds from the sale of 15% of the shares of Cominière SA in the company Dathcom Mining.
Out of the total amount of proceeds from the sale of 15% of the shares, which amounts to US$33,440,000 (US dollars thirty-three million four hundred and forty thousand), Cominière SA has already used around US$6,800,000 US (US dollars sin million eight hundred thousand) for snacks, fees, commission and remuneration for the benefit of the persons who contributed to the sale of the shares, with the approval of the Board of Directors of Cominière SA ".
Then: “Transfer free of charge of 5% of the shares of Cominière SA in the company Dathcom Mining SA for the benefit of Dathomir Mining Sarl. The presumed free and provisional transfer of 5% of Cominière's shares in Dathcom Mining SA to Dathomir Mining Sarl, which took place in 2017, proved in view of the transfer contract that it was final and irrevocable, with a price agreed between the two parties, but whose income has not been traced to Cominière SA. There is presumption of use of forgery on the part of the Director General ai to carry out a fraudulent transfer of 5% of shares”.
Then close by appointing those responsible. "All these facts are the responsibility of the Chief Executive Officer ai of Cominière SA, the members of the Board of Directors of the said company as well as the Minister of State, Minister of the Portfolio".
La Cominière SA is a young mining company whose head office is located at n°5167, avenue Nyembo, Socimat district, in Kinshasa-Gombe. It was created on April 12, 2010 after the decision of the General Meeting of shareholders, namely, the Ministry of Portfolio and the National Institute of Social Security whose new name, since July 15, 2018 (law of July 15, 2016 ), is the National Social Security Fund, CNSS.
THE INFLUENTIAL CONG MAO HUAI.
La Cominière owns 35 mining areas scattered in North Katanga, in the provinces of Tanganyika and Haut-Lomami where there are pegmatite-type rocks rich in spodumene, a lithium mineral associated with stanno-coltaniferous ores.
More specifically in the territories of Manono, Mitwaba, Kalemie, Malemba-Nkulu, Bukama, Moba, Nyunzu, Kongolo. The company conducts all study, prospecting, research and mining operations for cassiterite, tantalum, niobium, wolfram, lithium, gold and all transferable and recoverable mineral substances.
The history of Cominière dates back to 1920 when the Geological and Mining Company of Belgian Engineers and Industrialists extracted tin in Manono. In 1960, the day after independence, the Geological and Mining Company sold its assets to the Geological and Mining Company of Congo.
Renamed Congo-Étain in 1968, then Zaire-Étain in 1971, the company saw its production gradually drop. In 1997, it resumed the name of Congo-Étain, before being reborn, at the beginning of the 2010s, under the name of Cominière, la Congolaise d'Exploitation Minière, whose capital is held by the Congolese State (90%) and the National Social Security Fund (10%).
Dathomir Mining Resources, owned by the influential Chinese businessman Cong Mao Huai, called Simon Cong in Congo, and considered the bridgehead of Chinese business in the country, in September 2020 concluded a sale of 10% of its shares in Manono to the Australian operator of the project, AVZ Minerals.
The finalization of the transaction makes AVZ Minerals the owner of 75% of the lithium site against 25% for the state company Cominière.
Zijin Mining is a Chinese mining company. It is China's third largest copper enterprise. It is the leading gold company in China and operates the Zijinshan mine, China's largest gold mine. In May 2015, Zijin Mining bought 47% of the Kamoa project for US$412 million from Canadian Ivanhoe Mines.
In total, Zijin Mining has a 57% stake in the Kamoa copper mine and a 51% stake through its subsidiary Jin Cheng Mining in the Compagnie Minière de Musonoie Global.
Classified as a strategic metal in the Congo, lithium is a rare metal. It is used in the manufacture of cells and batteries, in particular for solar panels, computers, smartphones and electric cars, but also in the glass and ceramics industry, such as in the manufacture of special lubricants and alloys, the treatment of stale air by CO2, the pharmaceutical industry and that of rubber and thermoplastics.
The world's largest producers of lithium to date are Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, dubbed the “lithium triangle”, as well as China and Australia. Lithium from the Congo could eventually prove to be the easiest to extract and of the highest quality. The country, which hosts a number of metals essential to the energy transition and which arouse covetousness, is already the main world supplier of cobalt and one of the major players in the production of copper, attracts the whole world with its immense reserves of lithium to his bow.
D.DADEI.
