To be made an example of, showing that there is no longer such a thing as untouchable. Thanks to the US influence and backing no doubt. For the last year US visiting officials and Biden has given the DRC the constant message, get on top of the corruption. I think the DRC are getting some help on that front recently. They will go for the most influential and make them examples. Once one falls they all will start to fall, and there are a lot of trees to fell. The US would already have their deck of cards to go after. They always go for the heads of the snake. They will also make it very public. The US has the worlds greatest intelligence capability. They already know who is who in the brown paper bag club holding the DRC to ransom.
I reckon we will see other deals with other countries taking up positions in a massive push to rapidly industrialise the DRC and surrounding partner countries in making it a global hub of EV manufacturing and supply. AVZ will become something like a corporation. Nigel said this himself during the last round of SH meeting in Aus. I heard him say this at the Melbourne presentation. At the time I could see there was a massive amount of work to be done to change the business environment in the DRC, it was very much a forward looking statement, and at the time a pipe dream to be honest. Now we see a positioning of other interested global powers besides China moving in. China is about to get spanked by the US in the DRC I reckon, and they don’t need to touch a Chinese National to do it. They will go for the most powerful National DRC power figures that are China’s pawns.
*Fyi, To add, I see where,
Vidiye Tshimanga, an embarrassing affair for power
The special adviser to the Head of State in terms of strategy, was taken this Wednesday, September 21 to the Makala prison center in Kinshasa. Vidiye Tshimanga had responded in the morning to an invitation from the Advocate General of the General Prosecutor's Office at the Kinshasa / Gombe Court of Appeal.
Strong presumptions of corruption weigh on this key man of the Félix Tshisekedi regime.
The adviser to the Head of State on strategy fell into a trap set for him by investigative journalists.
In a video that has gone viral on social media, Vidiye Tshimanga is heard asking for a 20 percent commission on big upcoming investments.
Everything is done by videoconference.
Supposed businessmen holders claim to want to put capital in Congolese mines.
Thus, Vidiye Tshimanga affirms that he can facilitate their access to the deposits.
Travel by plane, hotel by luxury plane, gourmet meal
It all happened last July in London.
Travel to the British capital is provided by a man and a woman.
They also pay him lodging and accommodation in a luxury hotel.
Both people claim to belong to a large economic conglomerate.
The latter would have a storefront in Hong Kong and this city is reputed to be a tax haven.
In relatively good English, Vidiye Tshimanga begins the conversation with the supposed investors.
However, he is unaware that the whole scene is captured by hidden cameras.
We see him in a short-sleeved suit, Mao Tse Toung style. He is visibly relaxed and sure of himself.
From the outset, he indicates that legally, he can in no way participate in this kind of project, but he claims to be the owner of a mining company of which he has withdrawn from the day-to-day management.
He also indicates that he has entrusted the day-to-day management of his company to men he has hired.
According to him, his children remain shareholders in his company.
I am an important man for the president of the republic
A second round table is organized the next day in the same hotel.
This time, the adviser to the Head of State reveals the modus operandi.
He indicates that for this kind of operation, they operate through tax havens such as Mauritius.
He claims that he also owns a company called COBAMIN.
It is through this company that he would hold 20 percent of the shares of the company Ivanhoé.
This powerful company operates mines in Lualaba and Haut-Katanga.
Certainly to convince his interlocutors, Vidiye Tshimanga displays his closeness to the President of the Republic.
In addition, he claims to have financed his electoral campaign.
Which could induce that Felix Tshisekedi is indebted to him.
Which could suggest that he is in collusion with the Congolese head of state.
Mafia practices
According to the words of Vidiye Tshimanga, what he proposes is common in the DRC.
He even claims that bribes are practiced across all continents and countries.
15 billion dollars lost per year, due to corruption
In his time, Joseph Kabila's special advisor on corruption, Emmanuel Luzolo Bambi Lessa, said that this scourge caused an annual loss of 15 billion dollars.
The former opposition now in power had shown its desire to put an end to financial predation.
Before Kabila equal after Kabila
La Lucha notes that corruption continues as in the good old days.
Jean Mulenda, delegate of the operations and strategies cell, deplores the persistence of the excesses that were current in the old regime.
“Yesterday as today, we see advisers interfering in files that are not their prerogatives. This is the case of Mr. Vidiye Tshimanga”.
Jean Mulenda welcomes the questioning of the person concerned.
He nevertheless hopes that "we will not experience a facade of justice, where we see arrests, but without concrete results".
For this activist of good governance and transparency, the facts alleged against the adviser to the Head of State are likely to tarnish the image of the latter.
This is why, according to him, serious investigations must be carried out to clarify this matter, especially since the current government is committed to establishing the rule of law.
Two days after the broadcast of this video, the office of the Head of State distanced itself from the person concerned.
A press release dated Friday, September 16, declares that “Anyone, including within the office of the President of the Republic, whose proven behavior will have violated the law, the ethics of his function or the internal regulations of the presidential office , will suffer the rigors of their effects”.
Vidiye Tshimamga, for his part, denies the facts.
He claims, moreover, that it is he, on the contrary, who would have trapped these so-called investors.
A version to which very few people give credit.
For public opinion, the special adviser to the Head of State has just unwittingly revealed the mafia side of the power in place.
For the population, this affair thus revealed the dark side of the current regime.
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