DRC: the explanations of the Central Bank after the publication of the audit of its accounts
DRC, Kinshasa, view of the city (illustration), January 2019. John Wessels / Bloomberg via Getty
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
In the DRC, the Central Bank explains after the publication for the first time on its website of the report on the audit of its accounts as at December 31, 2019. It was a requirement of the International Monetary Fund.
This report was produced by the Deloitte firm, but for civil society, it is far from providing the transparency expected.
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With our special correspondent in Kinshasa
,
Sonia Rolley
The Central Bank
claims to have had its reports audited each year by a major international firm, but the results had never been published.
Only a part was included in the annual report of the Central Bank of Congo.
“
Each year, when you look towards the end of our report, towards the administration part which talks about the financial situation of the Central Bank, you will see that our accounts are certified and that there is therefore an opinion of the auditor .
The opinion has always been an unqualified certification of the accounts of the Central Bank
”, assures Jean-Louis Kayembe, CEO of the BCC.
The audit of the central bank reveals the existence of around thirty sub-accounts in the general treasury account which contain hundreds of millions of dollars.
On reading their titles, some no longer have a purpose today.
Why not have them closed?
For Jean-Louis Kayembe, the answer is simple: “
Sub-accounts exist in all accounts in the world.
So having sub accounts is not bad at all.
And we do not have the power to close them without the authorization of the principal
.
"
In 2017, the BCC had asked, in vain, the Ministry of Finance to close 24 of these dormant or inactive sub-accounts which already contained more than 300 million dollars.
Regarding the claims of Burundi and Rwanda at the Central Bank of Congo, there have been attempts to settle these debts since 1997, the last date of two years ago.
In 2018, a deadline was even set with Burundi, but it was never kept.
These debts were linked to imbalances in trade balances within the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries, which once had its own clearinghouse.
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