DRC: Vital Kamerhe's request for provisional release rejected

Text by: Pascal Mulegwa Follow

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the justice system has decided to detain Vital Kamerhe, the chief of staff of President Felix Tshisekedi. He was placed in preventive detention last Thursday for suspicions of embezzlement of funds allocated to the emergency program of the president in power since January 2019.

Publicity

From our correspondent in Kinshasa,

The court considers that Vital Kamerhe is the supervisor of the 100-day works and maintains that he also piloted the operations of public contracts by mutual agreement, which, the court affirms, led to the embezzlement of public funds.

According to the prosecution, whose arguments are developed in the order, the head of the presidential cabinet has in particular awarded a delivery contract for prefabricated houses to Samibo Congo Sarl, a company that the prosecution considers "fictitious". This company had obtained this contract for an amount of 57 million USD of which 47 million had been released in cash and disappeared from the banking circuit without being allocated to the purchase of houses.

Another case, according to the prosecution, is a controversial purchase of pharmaceutical products for ten million dollars. The contract had been awarded to TRADE PLUS, a company which had received $ 10 million for the supply of medicines.

The scandal is that this company is not in the business and only runs a hardware store. It had supplied products, largely expired, but the Minister of Health, Eteni Longondo, had curiously declared them compliant.

In this case, Vital Kamerhe maintains that he is in no way responsible and brushes aside other accusations. According to him, all these public contracts were inherited from the last government of the regime of Joseph Kabila.

He also maintains that no over-the-counter market bears his signature. Another argument of the chief of staff: he affirms that it is not his responsibility to follow the allocation of funds paid by the central bank in the accounts of said companies.

The detainee finally denies that several personalities responsible for supervising the work, including the governor of the Central Bank of Congo (BCC) and ministers still in office are in no way worried. The court therefore did not hear his arguments. The detentions in Makala prison will continue for at least another 15 days.

Newsletter With the Daily Newsletter, find the headlines directly in your mailbox

Follow all international news by downloading the RFI application

• Ground floor

On the same subject

DRC: Question of provisional release of Vital Kamerhe pending

Case of the “100-day program” in the DRC: apart from Vital Kamerhe, who is implicated?

Africa press review

In the News: Vital Kamerhe now in prison, this real bubbling cauldron in the DRC