11/07/2024
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IN THE headlines > USD 70 million case involving a Cominiere administrator: Antoinette N'samba in the eye of the cyclone
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Case $70 million involving an administrator of the Cominiere: Antoinette N'samba in the eye of the cyclone
Last updated: 2024/07/11 at 5:40 PM
MinesPublished July 11, 2024
The case of the alleged payment of US$70 million (USD) involving former Minister of Mines Antoinnete N'samba Kalambayi, causes a lot of ink and saliva to flow. It raises fears of the opening of a legal action.
Contents
Sword of Damocles?Any questions to ask?
Last May, the civil society organization Le Congo N'est pas à Vendre had alerted, via a statement sent to Mines.cd, about a scandal of embezzlement of about USD 70 million and corruption involving the company Cominiere SA.
According to this civil society, it was an endowment that would have been carried out by the Chinese company Zijin Mining for the benefit of a non-governmental organization (NGO) Le Bouclier, led by Jean-David É'ngazi who is at the same time a member of the Board of Directors of this company in the State portfolio.
Since then, voices have been raised mainly on the web, calling on the former Minister of Mines, Antoinette N'saba Kalambay to clarify, rightly or wrongly, the "misappropriation of $70 million involving an administrator of the COMINIERE".
Sword of Damocles?
The fear of a probable prosecution is felt. Opinion wonders how a Chinese firm could pay such a colossal amount estimated at USD 70 million to an NGO belonging to one of the directors of the Cominiere without the Minister of Mines knowing it?
According to Danny Oleka, lawyer for Antoinette N'samba Kalambay, the Chinese company Zijin Mining would have made a simple "endowment" to Jean-David É'ngazi's Congolese NGO. As a result, another opinion wonders why anti-corruption activists and journalists do not ask for clarifications from the Congolese NGO, its leader, or even the Cominiere company, but only from the former Minister of Mines.
Any questions to ask?
For Danny Oleka, an analysis of this situation by an average intellectual with a minimum of common sense would have raised questions, especially if the fears of the authors of these publications were justified, would the former Minister have anything to blame?
"Even in the event that this donation would have disguised dubious transactions, which it is not possible to say, the former Minister of Mines would not have been involved in the negotiations and/or transactions initiated or concluded by a public mining company, even on a mining right," he said.
The latter being part of the State's patrimony, could not be the subject of a partnership without the State itself deciding, thus raising Article 8 of Law No. 08/010 of 07 July 2008 laying down the rules relating to the organization and management of the State's portfolio and Article 1 B points 7 and 35 of the Ordinance laying down the powers of the ministries, which states that it was not up to the former Minister of Mines to engage the State-shareholder in such a process of disengagement within a portfolio company.
For him, the intervention of the Minister of Mines is technical, by the approval of the transfer, at the end of the examination of the transfer request file by the Ministry's services. Moreover, the question still arises, in view of the facts presented, whether it is appropriate to speak of embezzlement of public funds.
For lawyer David Oleka, to speak of a misappropriation in the case of a donation until proof of the contrary free and not noted by the parties, is to spread his ignorance in the public square, not being a judicial body. For him, there is no reason to request clarifications from Antoinette N'samba Kalambay.
For other analysts, this former boss of the Mines under the Sama 1 and 2 governments risks experiencing the same fate as her former colleagues Nicolas Kazadi of Finance who took the runaway after the public clamor accusing her of embezzlement and François Rubota of Rural Development who is under a provisional arrest warrant at the Kinshasa Penitentary and Rehabilitation Center (CPRK, former Makala prison), both concerning the file of "overbilling the drilling and streetlights project".
Faced with the accusations of some and the defense of others on the one hand, and the voices that rise asking for the clarification of the former Minister of the Minister of Mines on the other, it is up to the body of the Law to seize this file so that the truth can be broken out.
L’affaire du prétendu versement de 70 millions de dollars américains (USD) impliquant l’ancienne Ministre des Mines Antoinnete N’samba Kalambayi, fait couler beaucoup d’encre et de salive. Elle fait craindre l’ouverture d’une action judiciaire.ContentsÉpée de Damoclès ?Des questions à se poser ...
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