Democratic Republic of Congo has launched a probe into the embezzlement of over $300 million from state miner Gecamines between 2012 and 2020, the justice ministry said in a statement on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Gecamines, which holds minority stakes in several of the world’s largest copper and cobalt projects, has long been dogged by accusations of corruption made by non-governmental organisations and opposition politicians.<\/p>\n
Congo’s public finances watchdog, the General Inspectorate of Finances (IGF),\u00a0found in 2022\u00a0that more than $400 million in tax advances and loans that Gecamines said it paid to the national treasury could not be found.<\/p>\n
It said in a report at the time that the missing $413 million were presumed to have been misappropriated and that auditors would continue their investigations.<\/p>\n
Gecamines has consistently denied wrongdoing. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The IGF had also found in a separate audit on the finances of Congo’s central bank that Gecamines had embezzled advance tax payments worth around $315 million between 2012 and 2020.<\/p>\n
Congo’s justice ministry said in a statement on Saturday that it had instructed the public prosecutor to open a court case against those responsible for the “misappropriation of public funds” flagged by the IGF.<\/p>\n
It said there would be a particular focus on the embezzlement of advance tax payments worth around $315 million between 2012 and 2020.<\/p>\n
“International arrest warrants have been issued for the accused and forwarded to the judicial authorities of several countries for their arrest,” the statement said, without citing any names.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Democratic Republic of Congo has launched a probe into the embezzlement of over $300 million from state miner Gecamines between 2012 and 2020, the justice ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Gecamines, which holds minority stakes in several of the world’s largest copper and cobalt projects, has long been dogged by accusations of corruption […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11722,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2362,3028],"tags":[72,415],"class_list":["post-14922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-featured","category-mining","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-gecamines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}