Worthy of a re-read........
At the center of a nebula: Simon Cong, the new Congolese mining magnate, in front of the Court of Appeal of Lubumbashi
September 9, 2022 TIGHANA MASIALA Economy,NEWS FEED Comments Offsur Au centre d’une nébuleuse : Simon Cong, le nouveau magnat des mines congolaises, devant la Cour d’appel de Lubumbashi
Simon Cong, owner of the "Fleuve Congo Hotel", was received in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and benefited graciously as manna from the opportunity to develop his business and to put together with the Government a partnership company called "DATHCOM MINING SAS", under the Kabila regime to develop the Manono Lithium project. He is also the shareholder behind the company "DATHOMIR INTERNATIONAL CORP" which is today the sole shareholder of his company "DATHOMIR" according to the documents to which our investigators had access as well as the Inspector General of Finance (IGF).
Six of the concessions in the sample included in Global Witness' 45-page report entitled ''RENEWABLE ENERGY, WHATEVER IT TAKES? Diving into the emerging Congolese lithium sector'', whose Manono Dathcom Mining project (on PR13359) and one of Tantalex's concessions (PR13698), are or have been partially owned or acquired from companies associated with Cong Maohuai in a manner to be investigated by the Congolese government with civil society.
China's Cong Maohuai also headed Dathomir Mining Resources Sarlu, one of the partners in the Dathcom Mining SA joint venture with Cominière and AVZ until September 2021, according to internal documents. Dathomir Mining Resources Sarlu is 100% owned by Dathomir Internationa Corp., represented by Mr. Cong. According to information received from corroborating credible sources, Dathomir Mining Resources Sarlu was listed as AVZ's largest shareholder in the company's 2018 and 2017 annual reports. One year later, in AVZ Minerals' 2019 Annual Report, Dathomir Mining Resources Sarlu is no longer among AVZ Minerals' top 20 shareholders for obvious reasons.
According to several sources and documents, it is established that Simon Cong Maohuai exercised, in the five-month period between the establishment of the joint venture and the purchase of the majority of the shares by AVZ Minerals, as a representative of Dathomir Mining Resources Sarlu and briefly as Chairman of Dathcom Mining SAS.
In the case pending before the Court of Appeal, Mr. Cong Maohuai and his company pursued his own joint venture with the Congolese State Dathcom Mining SA (partnership company and also an important project of the Government and Cominière).
The facts of the case registered under RPA 7610 at the Court of Appeal of Lubumbashi On September 16, 2021, Simon Cong, through his company Dathomir Mining Resources Sarlu, outgoing shareholder of the partnership company Dathcom Mining SA after selling all his shares received graciously from Cominière, had seized on "direct summons" the High Court of Haut-Katanga in Lubumbashi
to prosecute the poor clerk of the Single Window for " forgery and use of forgery" for having regularly and legally carried an official seal on the register of shares, not of the counter but of the company Dathcom Mining SA. He also sued the Managing Director of the said company in which he claims to be a shareholder through his company Dathomir Mining Resources Sarlu for "complicity" in having updated the company's databases after the sale by Dathomir Mining Resources Sarlu of its shares to the majority shareholder AVZ International Ltd and, and more serious to have the State partnership company sentenced to several tens of millions of US dollars.
According to the investigations and lawyers of Dathcom Mining, while the hearing had been scheduled for December 22, 2022, the company Dathcom to protect itself had requested the "given act" in order to suspect the said High Court of Lubumbashi whose evidence had indicated suspicious activities with Mr. Cong and his people. The Court of Cassation in Kinshasa had approved and given note but miraculously, as in a State of lawlessness, the Chief Registrar who had to issue the "Given" in order to file it before the High Court in Lubumbashi to block this procedure and have it transferred to another jurisdiction that would have allowed a fair justice respecting the rights of the parties and a fair judicial fight did not do so.
What seems to have already been prepared had happened and the High Court of Lubumbashi rendered a judgment described as "not only iniquitous but unthinkable" by Dathcom's counsels by condemning:
- The clerk PAPALAS MUSAGI WABULASA (Principal Author) sentenced with admission of mitigating circumstances to 12 months of Principal Criminal Servitude suspended for 12 months and a fine of 200,000 Congolese Francs. In the absence of payment within the legal period, he will undergo 10 days of subsidiary penal servitude with a sentence to pay a symbolic franc as damages for the benefit of Mr. Cong's Dathomir company.
- The general manager of the company Dathcom (accomplice according to the complaint), Graeme Johnston, was sentenced in absentia (because absent from the country due to COVID for more than two years), to three years of main penal servitude with immediate arrest and a fine of 200,000 Congolese Francs. This is where the scandal and suspicion hold.
- The company Dathcom (in which Dathomir was supposed to be a shareholder and bearer of the Manono project to which the State is entitled to 10%, Cominière is a shareholder and the people of Manono are waiting for the benefits), was found civilly liable for the payment of the sum of 50,000,000 US dollars (Fifty million US dollars) payable in Congolese Francs. A second scandal in favor of a Chinese who had everything graciously from Cominière in Dathcom but who earns millions of dollars on the back of the Republic in complicity with certain citizens and certain institutions of the country. This is not possible for a Congolese in China or elsewhere.
This decision described as "iniquitous" by several Congolese observers and jurists rendered on December 24, 2021, just two days after the hearing and without having received the pleading notes of the defense including the partnership company Dathcom, was rendered by magistrates NDUME RUGADJO Patrick (President of the Chamber), MALANGU MUDIFIDI (judge) and NGOIE TSHIKALA (judge) with the assistance of MENDA KONJI (Officer of the Public Prosecutor's Office). It had discredited justice, because it was the first time that not only the accomplice was punished for 3 years is stronger than the main perpetrator who was 12 suspended for 12 months with mitigating circumstances; it has undermined the efforts of a just justice and a State of law wanted by the Head of State Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi and for which he has been fighting every day since taking power.
Through this judgment Dathomir and its owner Simon Cong had shown contempt not only for the Congolese people who had given him the opportunity to come and do business in the Democratic Republic of Congo under the previous regime but, in addition by condemning the Dathcom partnership company created to manage the Manono project, they wanted the Congolese people, the public company Cominière and the Government of the Republic to be able to pay this famous Chinese 50 million US dollars. The conviction of the company Dathcom implies that those who will pay this sum on behalf of the company to Mr. Cong are the following shareholders: Congolese State, AVZ International, Dathomir (Mr. Cong's company) and Cominière SA which helped this Chinese to earn several tens of millions of US dollars through Dathomir and other partnership projects without knowing to date what he invested.
In view of these facts, the Minister of State in charge of Justice and Keeper of the Seals had reacted energetically by condemning these judgments and instructing the prison service to open an investigation to establish responsibility by her letter under No. R271/RKM/111/APP/CAB/ME/MIN/J and GS/2022 of 1 February 2022, directing the General Inspectorate of Judicial and Prison Services to examine the facts and report thereon to the Commission.
Despite the reaction and disapproval of the boss of justice in the country, Mr. Simon Cong will still defy the Congolese State and especially the efforts of the President of the Republic and Head of State, the Congolese government and the population of Manono by expediting the case in question on appeal under RPA 7610 while the company Dathcom awaits its notification miraculously and illegally blocked by the Mining Cadastre which has nevertheless issued a favorable opinion, leading to A daily loss estimated by the majority shareholder at "more than one million dollars (and having lost to date more than 100 million dollars)".
It is urgent to ask by what miracle and on the basis of which law judges of the Court of Cassation refused to render their decision to "give notice" in order to allow Dathcom Mining to suspect the Court of Appeal of Lubumbashi as provided for by law? How and why did judges not appear individually at the composition to deliver the pronouncement? According to the firm Momentum contacted by the investigators which advises Dathcom Mining, of the more than 28 cases taken under advisement, 26 cases had been pronounced and only the two cases of his client remained without any pronouncement. Who prevents Dathcom from defending itself loyally and why? Just justice and the rule of law are put to the test by a foreigner who has earned more from his victim than he has given him, without having given him anything known traceable by the IGF in its report on Cominière.
Simon Cong wants to establish himself as the king of lithium
While all eyes are on the leadership of His Excellency the President who is more concerned with the start of the project and the situation of the people of Manono, Dathomir after regularly selling his shares to AVZ, changes position after having the release of the Feasibility Study which has increased the interest of the project by everyone.
The release of the said Feasibility Study having changed his point of view, Dathomir of the Chinese Simon Cong decided to prosecute his own company without worrying that he would make the Congolese State, Cominière (its two benefactors) and AVZ International pay the 50 million US dollars he claims from Dathcom Mining.
The DRC has allowed Mr. Cong to win lucrative contracts, he is involved in several mining concessions in Manono including through companies such as MINOCOM with links to TANTALEX as well as more than six mining concessions since the past regime.
For some time, it is therefore against the will of the Head of State to see the project be started as quickly as possible that Mr. Cong and his company Dathomir use inappropriate maneuvers to make him pay more after the sale by using justice through trials that do not respect the rights of the defense or the laws of the country.
The media and civil society organizations member of the Coalition "the DRC and its people first" call on the IGF to deeply investigate the involvement of this Chinese citizen in the sale of State mining property at Cominière including the operations to obtain Research Permits PR 12436, 12449 and 12450. Because after the publication of the IGF report on Cominière, the Congolese do not understand how he managed to escape legal actions. Would this gentleman be protected by certain high-ranking personalities taunting the higher authorities of the country and allowing him to taunt an entire country? There is a need for investigations of state institutions, including those of the APLC and the National Assembly.
For some civil society organizations in Lubumbashi and Kinshasa that are also investigating this case, "Simon Cong does not care about the people of Manono and multiplies maneuvers by using justice to enrich himself more than the Congolese state owner of the mining assets for which he has his cake."
During the workshop organized last August at CEPAS on DRC Lithium by CERN-CENCO, participants including those of the Minister of Mines had mentioned that Mr. Cong, through his company Dathomir Mining Resources Sarlu, was to contribute a share to the Manono Lithium project in Dathcom Mining SA; all the participants in the CEPAS workshop had learned and realized that to date this Chinese citizen has made nothing as a contribution while he and his Dathomir have earned a lot of money using the country's mining concessions managed by Cominière SA.
While this country has given him everything and offered opportunities for regular maids to the regular, it is established today, given his legal actions in Lubumbashi mentioned above, that Mr. Cong is one of the people blocking the development of the Manono Lithium project and that of the country for the benefit of the interests of a group to be identifiedapidation and expose according to the call of the President of the Republic of 2019 against all those who are suspected of maintaining anti-values in the DRC.
An investigation conducted by Congo Nouveau, Le Socle, Econews, RCEN, Le Leader, Mining News Magazine, the coalition "Tous pour la RDC" and the Consrtium "La RDC et son peuple d'abord".
right at the centre of the stage and does a twirl while waving the ML.
