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A bit more recent information on Jules Alingete (IGF) care of @Frank
Jules Alingete is one of the most feared men in the DR-Congo.
He climbed all the levels of a career dedicated to the control of public finances: after studying economics, he became a certified public accountant, adviser to the Ministry of the Economy and tax specialist.
For three years, he has been Chief Inspector General of Finance of Congo (IGF) with the status of judicial police officer, which allows him to initiate legal proceedings in the event of violations.
Its reports are addressed directly to the Head of State.
What are the missions of the General Inspectorate of Finance?
Examining how public funds are managed, we note the facts of embezzlement and corruption.
We carry out audits, checks and verifications of all public services, companies, provinces, local entities, ministries in order to verify the proper use of public goods and funds.
Our checks can take place on past facts, but they also relate to current facts.
We even work a priori, before the act is performed, with the aim of prevention and education.
What are the biggest cases you have had to deal with?
I would pinpoint five, related to corruption and the embezzlement of public funds.
The control of the Central Bank of Congo is the first: we discovered credit cards held by officials, politicians.
Directly connected to the general account of the Treasury via commercial banks, these cards could be used at any time.
The State account could thus be debited for extremely high amounts, amounting to 10,000 dollars per day and purchases could reach the same amount.
The Congolese Treasury has thus lost a lot of money.
The audit of the forest sector of the DR-Congo - a process related to the moratorium to which the Congo had adhered - is the second case.
Despite commitments made to the international community, logging permits continued to be issued by members of the government in charge of the forestry sector.
Following our report, the current Minister of the Environment canceled logging concessions.
The audit of the mining sector was the third important case: the examination of all the contracts concluded between 2010 and 2020 by Gécamines (the General Society of Quarries and Mines) revealed serious facts of the selling off of mining assets.
The modus operandi of fraud and selling off in this mining sector having been better understood, measures have been taken.
Between 2010 and 2020, Gécamines made nearly $2 billion in profits and 97% of that amount was squandered on operating expenses and snacks.
While Gécamines had to renew its production tool and relaunch its activities, no investment was made and the company has a very heavy social debt.
In addition, nearly 612 million dollars, paid by Gécamines to the Congolese State in respect of taxes due in 2010 and 2019 and paid into the Treasury account, have disappeared at the level of the Central Bank of Congo.
The affair of Chinese contracts, opaque and unbalanced, is resounding…
The audit of Chinese contracts is the fourth outstanding mission.
This contract, called "minerals for infrastructure", was concluded following an agreement signed in 2008 between the DR-Congo and a few Chinese companies: under the terms of this contract, the DR-Congo was to give mineral-rich deposits to companies Chinese.
In return, the latter had to provide the financial means allowing the exploitation of these deposits.
It was agreed that the two parties would share the gains resulting from this exploitation.
The evaluation of these contracts revealed, to the detriment of the DR-Congo, disparities in the distribution of the benefits generated by the agreement.
The distribution of capital in the common exploitation is an example: the Congo, which had brought the bulk of the business - that is to say its richest mines, whose value was estimated at more than 90 billion dollars -, received 32% of the shares during the constitution of a joint venture, Sicomines.
The Chinese side, which had contributed nothing, received 68% of the shares.
The company thus created operated on the basis of loans which were contracted with Chinese banks at too high rates, around 12% interest, loans that Sicomines had to repay.
The Chinese took advantage of the laxity of some Congolese who insolently enriched themselves.
Since the real contribution of Chinese companies has not been traced, we have never understood how the Chinese side was able to secure 68% of the shares...
The distribution of earnings from Sicomines has been unbalanced: according to studies conducted by the IGF, the total earnings, after 15 years of operation, were estimated at 10 billion dollars.
While in principle, Sicomines should have given the Congolese state 32% of the gains resulting from the exploitation of the mining sites, the Congolese state only received 822 million dollars.
This sum should have been used to repay the loans that the State had contracted to build the infrastructure.
The value of the planned infrastructure was estimated at $3.2 billion, in the form of schools, roads, hospitals, universities.
Admittedly, loans were contracted, but the funds freed up by the Chinese contracts were not allocated to carrying out the promised work.
It is now a question of rebalancing the advantages between the parties.
Some Congolese have enriched themselves thanks to these contracts: if the funds have not ended up in the state coffers, it is because they have been used for other purposes...
You also discovered infrastructures that had been financed both by Sicomines and by the Public Treasury, so much so that today, we do not know who financed what...
Added to this is the problem of the quality and price of these infrastructures: counter-expertise revealed over-invoicing ranging from simple to double, the quality of certain roads proved to be below average.
The DR-Congo was practically set aside during the control of Sicomines: the president of the company was a Chinese as were 70% of the members of the Board of Directors.
As for the daily management of the company, the general manager was Chinese as well as the three main directions, production, finance and marketing.
The deputy managing director, a Congolese, only had a ceremonial role, the managing director had his residence in China and in his absence, it was the commercial or technical managing director who acted as interim.
How, in such circumstances, could we have given reliable information on the commercial policy or on the functioning of Sicomines?
This company behaving like a state within a state, it was impossible to access its financial data.
It took ten years for this company to agree to file its financial statements with the Congolese authorities in 2021.
Whether it was finance, production, trade policy, the Chinese managed everything, it was in Chinese that their instruments were configured.
Congolese engineers did not control the situation...
In addition, since Sicomines' production is sold to Chinese companies, the selling price was estimated to be half the normal price.
I conclude that the ten billion generated by Sicomines in fifteen years in fact represent only half of the reality...
These elements explain why the President of the Republic decided that this Chinese contract should be revisited in order to rebalance the advantages between the parties.
The audit of the civil servants' payroll file was also another important file for you.
1. 426,000 civil servants were concerned and their salary represented 350 million dollars per month.
The audit revealed many dysfunctions: people had several registration numbers and were therefore paid several times, others had the same numbers as other agents and they were therefore fictitious, some were paid on the lists of several services, for example the Ministry of Education or that of the Plan, other beneficiaries were not known by the service supposed to employ them...
A quarter of the names on the files being questionable, the IGF asked for the general cleaning of these files.
The Ministries of Finance, Budget, Labor will take care of this task and then the Ministry of Finance will report to the government.
Do you have any idea how much money was lost in all these cases that could be recovered?
The equivalent of 70 million per month was recovered from the pay of state agents!
In fifteen years, Chinese contracts have caused us to lose 10 billion US dollars because of the mismanagement of our agreement.
More than 50 other major mining contracts containing serious irregularities were examined.
Gécamines, responsible for managing all of these mining contracts, has collected royalties reaching 10 billion dollars.
But 97% of this amount was squandered on operating expenses and placed on investments.
And this when the company should have renewed its production tool and financed its revival...
This explains the “social debt” represented by the arrears to be paid to staff.
As for the credit card business, it caused us to lose between 50 and 60 million dollars.
In addition, nearly $612 million paid in taxes to the Central Bank of Congo was not returned to the central account of the Public Treasury; that money is gone...
We have not yet audited the operating costs of the army, the national police, the intelligence services, these two structures having internal inspection bodies.
As for the teachers, they were paid because they have priority.
Faced with this generalization of corruption, who do you incriminate?
These corruption problems merit analysis over time.
The DR-Congo has long lived in a system where corruption was considered normal; people did not realize that this practice mortgaged the development of an entire nation.
The current president wanted to revitalize all public finance control services.
Since 2020, three services have been fighting against the embezzlement of public funds.
The strategy of the monitoring bodies is to publish reports right away, which causes a public outcry.
It is then up to the courts to examine the files and decide.
Justice being independent, we must refrain from commenting on its decisions, among other things when great dignitaries find themselves whitewashed...
In general, we need to rebalance the advantages between the parties in order to be able to embark on the reconstruction of the country.
The Chinese made do with the laxity they found in the Congo.
It is up to us to make the contracts advantageous for all parties.
It will be up to the courts to establish the responsibilities of the Congolese themselves...
How did you react to the Congo Hold-up investigation, carried out by a consortium of investigative journalists including those of “Le Soir”?
This case concerned the embezzlement of $43 million belonging to the Central Bank of Congo but lodged in its accounts with the BGFI Bank.
What was not correctly pointed out was that the IGF had participated in the Congo Hold-up investigation!
On several files we shared the same conclusions.
However, for the IGF, the 43 million dollars that had disappeared from the accounts of the Central Bank of Congo with the BGFI had been stolen by this commercial bank.
On the other hand, for the media involved in the Congo Hold-up investigation, the BGFI had taken this money to serve the Kabila camp.
The IGF had no evidence to support this claim.
The difference between the investigations of services such as ours and those of NGOs often lies in the production of the material evidence of the assertions.
At the IGF, we must remain apolitical and the results of our investigations must be supported by conclusive material evidence.
To date, the BGFI Bank has already acknowledged the facts charged to it by the IGF and it has even already reimbursed nearly 40 million dollars to the Central Bank of Congo.
Our only element of reference is the fact of touching public funds: whoever you are, we, without political consideration, will be interested in you...
mediacongo
Jules Alingete is one of the most feared men in the DR-Congo.
He climbed all the levels of a career dedicated to the control of public finances: after studying economics, he became a certified public accountant, adviser to the Ministry of the Economy and tax specialist.
For three years, he has been Chief Inspector General of Finance of Congo (IGF) with the status of judicial police officer, which allows him to initiate legal proceedings in the event of violations.
Its reports are addressed directly to the Head of State.
What are the missions of the General Inspectorate of Finance?
Examining how public funds are managed, we note the facts of embezzlement and corruption.
We carry out audits, checks and verifications of all public services, companies, provinces, local entities, ministries in order to verify the proper use of public goods and funds.
Our checks can take place on past facts, but they also relate to current facts.
We even work a priori, before the act is performed, with the aim of prevention and education.
What are the biggest cases you have had to deal with?
I would pinpoint five, related to corruption and the embezzlement of public funds.
The control of the Central Bank of Congo is the first: we discovered credit cards held by officials, politicians.
Directly connected to the general account of the Treasury via commercial banks, these cards could be used at any time.
The State account could thus be debited for extremely high amounts, amounting to 10,000 dollars per day and purchases could reach the same amount.
The Congolese Treasury has thus lost a lot of money.
The audit of the forest sector of the DR-Congo - a process related to the moratorium to which the Congo had adhered - is the second case.
Despite commitments made to the international community, logging permits continued to be issued by members of the government in charge of the forestry sector.
Following our report, the current Minister of the Environment canceled logging concessions.
The audit of the mining sector was the third important case: the examination of all the contracts concluded between 2010 and 2020 by Gécamines (the General Society of Quarries and Mines) revealed serious facts of the selling off of mining assets.
The modus operandi of fraud and selling off in this mining sector having been better understood, measures have been taken.
Between 2010 and 2020, Gécamines made nearly $2 billion in profits and 97% of that amount was squandered on operating expenses and snacks.
While Gécamines had to renew its production tool and relaunch its activities, no investment was made and the company has a very heavy social debt.
In addition, nearly 612 million dollars, paid by Gécamines to the Congolese State in respect of taxes due in 2010 and 2019 and paid into the Treasury account, have disappeared at the level of the Central Bank of Congo.
The affair of Chinese contracts, opaque and unbalanced, is resounding…
The audit of Chinese contracts is the fourth outstanding mission.
This contract, called "minerals for infrastructure", was concluded following an agreement signed in 2008 between the DR-Congo and a few Chinese companies: under the terms of this contract, the DR-Congo was to give mineral-rich deposits to companies Chinese.
In return, the latter had to provide the financial means allowing the exploitation of these deposits.
It was agreed that the two parties would share the gains resulting from this exploitation.
The evaluation of these contracts revealed, to the detriment of the DR-Congo, disparities in the distribution of the benefits generated by the agreement.
The distribution of capital in the common exploitation is an example: the Congo, which had brought the bulk of the business - that is to say its richest mines, whose value was estimated at more than 90 billion dollars -, received 32% of the shares during the constitution of a joint venture, Sicomines.
The Chinese side, which had contributed nothing, received 68% of the shares.
The company thus created operated on the basis of loans which were contracted with Chinese banks at too high rates, around 12% interest, loans that Sicomines had to repay.
The Chinese took advantage of the laxity of some Congolese who insolently enriched themselves.
Since the real contribution of Chinese companies has not been traced, we have never understood how the Chinese side was able to secure 68% of the shares...
The distribution of earnings from Sicomines has been unbalanced: according to studies conducted by the IGF, the total earnings, after 15 years of operation, were estimated at 10 billion dollars.
While in principle, Sicomines should have given the Congolese state 32% of the gains resulting from the exploitation of the mining sites, the Congolese state only received 822 million dollars.
This sum should have been used to repay the loans that the State had contracted to build the infrastructure.
The value of the planned infrastructure was estimated at $3.2 billion, in the form of schools, roads, hospitals, universities.
Admittedly, loans were contracted, but the funds freed up by the Chinese contracts were not allocated to carrying out the promised work.
It is now a question of rebalancing the advantages between the parties.
Some Congolese have enriched themselves thanks to these contracts: if the funds have not ended up in the state coffers, it is because they have been used for other purposes...
You also discovered infrastructures that had been financed both by Sicomines and by the Public Treasury, so much so that today, we do not know who financed what...
Added to this is the problem of the quality and price of these infrastructures: counter-expertise revealed over-invoicing ranging from simple to double, the quality of certain roads proved to be below average.
The DR-Congo was practically set aside during the control of Sicomines: the president of the company was a Chinese as were 70% of the members of the Board of Directors.
As for the daily management of the company, the general manager was Chinese as well as the three main directions, production, finance and marketing.
The deputy managing director, a Congolese, only had a ceremonial role, the managing director had his residence in China and in his absence, it was the commercial or technical managing director who acted as interim.
How, in such circumstances, could we have given reliable information on the commercial policy or on the functioning of Sicomines?
This company behaving like a state within a state, it was impossible to access its financial data.
It took ten years for this company to agree to file its financial statements with the Congolese authorities in 2021.
Whether it was finance, production, trade policy, the Chinese managed everything, it was in Chinese that their instruments were configured.
Congolese engineers did not control the situation...
In addition, since Sicomines' production is sold to Chinese companies, the selling price was estimated to be half the normal price.
I conclude that the ten billion generated by Sicomines in fifteen years in fact represent only half of the reality...
These elements explain why the President of the Republic decided that this Chinese contract should be revisited in order to rebalance the advantages between the parties.
The audit of the civil servants' payroll file was also another important file for you.
1. 426,000 civil servants were concerned and their salary represented 350 million dollars per month.
The audit revealed many dysfunctions: people had several registration numbers and were therefore paid several times, others had the same numbers as other agents and they were therefore fictitious, some were paid on the lists of several services, for example the Ministry of Education or that of the Plan, other beneficiaries were not known by the service supposed to employ them...
A quarter of the names on the files being questionable, the IGF asked for the general cleaning of these files.
The Ministries of Finance, Budget, Labor will take care of this task and then the Ministry of Finance will report to the government.
Do you have any idea how much money was lost in all these cases that could be recovered?
The equivalent of 70 million per month was recovered from the pay of state agents!
In fifteen years, Chinese contracts have caused us to lose 10 billion US dollars because of the mismanagement of our agreement.
More than 50 other major mining contracts containing serious irregularities were examined.
Gécamines, responsible for managing all of these mining contracts, has collected royalties reaching 10 billion dollars.
But 97% of this amount was squandered on operating expenses and placed on investments.
And this when the company should have renewed its production tool and financed its revival...
This explains the “social debt” represented by the arrears to be paid to staff.
As for the credit card business, it caused us to lose between 50 and 60 million dollars.
In addition, nearly $612 million paid in taxes to the Central Bank of Congo was not returned to the central account of the Public Treasury; that money is gone...
We have not yet audited the operating costs of the army, the national police, the intelligence services, these two structures having internal inspection bodies.
As for the teachers, they were paid because they have priority.
Faced with this generalization of corruption, who do you incriminate?
These corruption problems merit analysis over time.
The DR-Congo has long lived in a system where corruption was considered normal; people did not realize that this practice mortgaged the development of an entire nation.
The current president wanted to revitalize all public finance control services.
Since 2020, three services have been fighting against the embezzlement of public funds.
The strategy of the monitoring bodies is to publish reports right away, which causes a public outcry.
It is then up to the courts to examine the files and decide.
Justice being independent, we must refrain from commenting on its decisions, among other things when great dignitaries find themselves whitewashed...
In general, we need to rebalance the advantages between the parties in order to be able to embark on the reconstruction of the country.
The Chinese made do with the laxity they found in the Congo.
It is up to us to make the contracts advantageous for all parties.
It will be up to the courts to establish the responsibilities of the Congolese themselves...
How did you react to the Congo Hold-up investigation, carried out by a consortium of investigative journalists including those of “Le Soir”?
This case concerned the embezzlement of $43 million belonging to the Central Bank of Congo but lodged in its accounts with the BGFI Bank.
What was not correctly pointed out was that the IGF had participated in the Congo Hold-up investigation!
On several files we shared the same conclusions.
However, for the IGF, the 43 million dollars that had disappeared from the accounts of the Central Bank of Congo with the BGFI had been stolen by this commercial bank.
On the other hand, for the media involved in the Congo Hold-up investigation, the BGFI had taken this money to serve the Kabila camp.
The IGF had no evidence to support this claim.
The difference between the investigations of services such as ours and those of NGOs often lies in the production of the material evidence of the assertions.
At the IGF, we must remain apolitical and the results of our investigations must be supported by conclusive material evidence.
To date, the BGFI Bank has already acknowledged the facts charged to it by the IGF and it has even already reimbursed nearly 40 million dollars to the Central Bank of Congo.
Our only element of reference is the fact of touching public funds: whoever you are, we, without political consideration, will be interested in you...
mediacongo
