DRC: businessman Dan Gertler strikes back on corruption charges
Video press conference by businessman Dan Gertler in Kinshasa, DRC, November 16, 2020. Sonia Rolley / RFI
Text by: RFI Follow
5 mins
While some of his partners are being prosecuted or heavily convicted of corruption in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Israeli businessman Dan Gertler strikes back.
He spoke on Monday, November 16, against the Congolese in a video.
He promises them that he will be able to take shares in the royalties from the Metalkol mine.
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With our special correspondent in Kinshasa,
Sonia Rolley
Dan Gertler has been put under US sanctions since 2017, and formally accused in recent weeks by the US justice of having paid bribes to Congolese officials.
This Monday, all the press had been invited to attend a press conference in Kinshasa.
Finally, the one we nickname the friend of Joseph Kabila spoke by video and in English.
He swears to have invested, in twenty years, more than 10 billion euros in the mining sector of the DRC, which Congolese and international NGOs dispute.
“
I consider myself to be Congolese.
I have spent most of my time, over the past twenty-three years, in the DRC.
Nobody understood what they were doing there and they asked me
: Mr. Gertler, why invest so much?
Why on long-term investments?
".
Accused of having corrupted Congolese officials in a recent judgment by the American justice system against the African subsidiary of the investment fund Och Ziff, Dan Gertler today promises the Congolese to make them benefit from a transparent partnership on the royalties paid on each tonne exported from the Metalkol mine.
“
With God's help, we have come to a point today where we are going to be able to share the wealth of the DRC's cobalt and copper mines.
All the Congolese who will become our partners will be paid for each tonne exported.
It is a first in history that Congolese citizens will be able to benefit directly from the riches of the Congo
”.
According to Africa Progress, a foundation run by Kofi Annan, Metalkol is a mine in Kolwezi and other concessions that Israeli Dan Gertler obtained for nearly $ 64 million and sold the company for ten times more. Kazakh ENRC.
Note that Dan Gertler did not specify the terms of this partnership he says he offers to the Congolese.
Its communications service assured that details would be given in the coming days.
He says he paid almost $ 83 million for Metalkol.
These royalties were sold by Gecamines, the state-owned mining company, in 2017 to Dan Gertler under the guise of a British Virgin Islands-based shell company, Multree limited, for $ 55 million.
Lucha and Filimbi demonstrate
Outside, members of the citizens' movements, Lucha and Filimbi, were demonstrating.
Doctor Jacques Issongo, Lucha activist, explains the reason for this demonstration.
We have decided to demonstrate today because we believe Dan Gertler is an economic thief.
He looted the DRC with his friend Kabila […].
This is for us an essential motive so that it can no longer have markets in the DRC and also to demand the opening of investigations into its assets.
Jacques Issongo, activist of the citizen movement Lucha
Sonia rolley
►Also read: Businessman Dan Gertler implicated in the DRC: a complaint has been filed (lawyer)
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