DR Congo: former Minister of Health Eteni Longondo in pre-trial detention
Former Congolese Minister of Health Eteni Longondo, during a press conference in Kinshasa.
He was placed under arrest warrant on Friday, August 27, 2021. © RFI / Pascal Mulegwa
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
Former Congolese Minister of Health Eteni Longondo, accused for almost a year by the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) of having embezzled funds allocated to the response against Covid-19 when he was in office in 2020, was placed under a provisional arrest warrant on Friday, August 27, 2021, after a hearing at the general prosecutor's office near the Court of Cassation in Kinshasa.
He spent the night in Makala central prison.
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With our correspondent in Kinshasa,
Pascal Mulegwa
It is an action that removes a thorn from President Tshisekedi's side, comments one of his close advisers, who was annoyed to see justice accused of only locking up opponents of the regime.
Eteni Longondo is an important figure in the presidential party, the UDPS.
He had already been brought to justice by the General Inspectorate of Finance in August 2020, but the file had not been taken care of, to the point of irritating the boss of the IGF.
At the beginning of the week, the file was activated against all expectations.
And it is therefore with serenity that Eténi Longondo presented himself, Friday, August 27 around 11 am, to the general prosecutor's office accompanied by his lawyers.
The hearing lasts five hours.
The former minister is confronted with the documents and minutes of the IGF, according to judicial sources.
If he was sent to prison, notes another source close to the prosecutor's office, it is because there are serious indications of guilt hanging over him.
On RFI, as in local media, Eteni Longondo assured in 2020 that no sum had been embezzled, even if the IGF report had concluded that it was embezzled against a background of overbilling for services and patient care.
Other expenses still, not being justified.
The parts were in "
full process of verification by its services
" at the time of the control of the IGF, assured Eteni Longondo.
In November, he returned to the public treasury some 721,900 dollars from "the premium too much received" by the agents of the response and "
the difference on the decontamination
" of the seat of Parliament, as well as a "
double payment made by the Central Bank of Congo
”by“
inadvertent
”.
At this stage of the procedure, the secrecy of the investigation requires: no comment was obtained from the lawyers of the former minister.
Eteni Longondo joined in prison his predecessor, Oly Ilunga, sentenced in 2019 to five years in prison for embezzlement as part of the response to the Ebola epidemic then the deadliest in the history of Congo-Kinshasa.
►Read again: Management of anti-Covid funds in the DRC, the Minister of Health explains himself
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DRC
Corruption
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