15 questions for Gécamines about the €200 million loan
Note
- Haut-Katanga
- Lualaba
- United States
- Corruption
- Mining
- Dan Gertler
- Gécamines
- Glencore
- Kamoto Copper Company
Associated partners
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Congo is not for sale (cnpav)
On December 23, 2019, Gécamines issued a press release in response to the controversy surrounding the €200 million loan granted to it by a company affiliated with Dan Gertler shortly before he was sanctioned in the United States for corruption. While the statement clarifies certain facts, it also raises many new questions.
One key question concerns the tax advance that Gécamines says it made using the loan. Why would a commercial company in debt, seeking to revive its production, use a loan to pay an advance tax—that is, taxes it is not yet liable for? Have the Congolese Court of Accounts and parliamentarians seen any record of this advance during the financial audits?
Furthermore, what steps has Gécamines taken to ensure that the $150 million it just received from KCC will not be transferred to Ventora Development, an entity sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department?
As part of the campaign “Congo is Not for Sale,” the signatory organizations raise 20 questions that urgently require clarification.