President Tshisekedi plans to rebalance the Chinese contract signed under Kabila
President Félix Tshisekedi has decided to renegotiate the Chinese contract signed in 2008, under former President Joseph Kabila by the Democratic Republic of Congo and a group of Chinese companies granting reckless advantages to the Chinese at the expense of the Congolese, a-t -we learned Friday from the Congolese government.
The Head of State made this announcement to the Council of Ministers, after the submission of the conclusions formulated by a working team responsible for evaluating the implementation of the Cooperation Agreement between the DRC and the group of Chinese companies signed by the regime of former President Kabila.
After "the work team submitted its conclusions, which will allow us to launch discussions with our Chinese partners in the coming days," said government spokesman Patrick Muyaya, who was reporting on the 99ᵉ government meeting on state television.
"The objective is to consolidate and further expand Sino-Congolese cooperation by building on sound foundations guaranteeing the principle of mutual respect, fairness and transparency beneficial to both the Congolese people and the Chinese people. “, explained Minister Muyaya.
President Tshisekedi instructed the ministers concerned for the forthcoming negotiations of the amendment to the Cooperation Agreement, namely the Ministers of State, Minister of Infrastructure and the Minister of the Budget, the Ministers of Finance and Mines as well as the presidential cabinet, all members of the strategic committee set up for this purpose, to agree and organize with the Chinese party as soon as possible the agenda for discussions on the final signature of the future amendment.
According to the Minister of Communication and the Media, the strategic committee will be supported in its tasks by the expertise of the General Careers and Mines (Gécamines S.A), the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) and the Steering, coordination and monitoring agency for the collaboration agreement signed between the DRC and private partners, and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (ITIE).
The Chairman recalled that in his previous communications, he had informed the members of the Board of the alarming conclusions of the reports of several state structures on the implementation of the collaboration agreement between groups of Chinese companies and "our country “, the DRC, September 17, 2017, said Minister Muyaya.
According to him, faced with these conclusions, the Head of State Tshisekedi had instructed the members of the government directly concerned by this file to work jointly with his cabinet as well as civil society on the specific points to be discussed. with the Chinese side with a view to rebalancing this agreement to make it truly win-win.
The IGF of the DRC had denounced, in its recently published report on the Chinese Contract, a disproportionate collaboration to the detriment of the DRC, denouncing an arbitrary, discriminatory and illegal nature of the fixing as well as the distribution of the share capital to USD 100,000,000.00 at a rate of 68% of the shares for the Grouping of Chinese Companies (GEC) and 32% for the Gécamines Group.
“There is also a significant financial imbalance to the detriment of the DRC between the advantages granted to the Chinese party and the commitments at its expense as well as the gains expected by the Congolese party at the rate of USD 90,936,120,000.00 to the Chinese against commitments at their expense of USD 6.2 billion, ie a gain for the Chinese of USD 84,736,120,000.00 to which must be added the tax and customs exemptions estimated provisionally at the 4 lowest rates at USD 2,163. 623,850.15,” the IGF wrote in its report.
It also noted a glaring weakness and the modesty of infrastructure investments, revealing that SICOMINES has mobilized, in 14 years, financing for a total amount of USD 4,471,588,685.14 and has only allocated USD 822,190 .060.14 for the financing of infrastructure works, i.e. 18.38% of the total financing mobilized.
According to this supervisory body, in six years, from 2016 to October 2022, SICOMINES has disbursed a total amount of USD 9,677,613,625.15 to Chinese companies and itself for various reasons not substantiated, further noting a lack of visibility and impact of the works carried out and their unjustified selectivity in violation of appendix C of the Agreement of 22 April 2008.
According to the IGF, the eligible works executed came to an amount of USD 534902461.66, while the non-eligible works executed came to USD 287287598.42.
In 2008, the Congolese government signed the collaboration agreement with the group of Chinese companies.
This Collaboration Agreement was concluded between China Railway Group and Syno Hydro Corporation on the one hand and the Democratic Republic of Congo on the other hand.
It serves as a framework agreement for the development of a mining project and a series of infrastructure projects.
Furthermore, government sources have announced the forthcoming visit of Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi to Beijing in the People's Republic of China in the next few days.
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