Taking advantage of this opportunity, these two citizen organizations recommend that the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation initiate legal proceedings against the ministers and public officials involved in this practice.
Jean-Claude Katende, national president of ASADHO, and Jacques Kashelewa, executive director of ODEP, have cited, for illustrative purposes, the direct granting of forest concessions and the awarding of others to companies not registered in the trade register, because according to them, this practice borders on corruption and has resulted in uncollected revenues for the public treasury of more than 10 million US dollars from 2014 to 2020.
"When you read this report on forest concessions, you will indeed realize that there were a number of corrupt practices which did not allow the Congolese state to receive its dues," Jean-Claude Katende pointed out.
Together, ODEP and ASADHO believe it was important to hold certain actors accountable, and that the silence of the Congolese justice be broken regarding the individuals who committed these abuses.
For ODEP and ASADHO, these acts by ministers and other state agents are cited in the IGF report concerning the legality check of allocations and transfer of forest concessions and the rights owed to the public treasury by forest exploiters.
Gisèle Mbuyi
Poor management of forest concessions in the DRC: ODEP and ASADHO lament the loss of 10 million dollars between 2014 and 2020
InternetKinshasaEconomy - The Public Expenditure Observatory (ODEP) and the African Association of Human Rights (ASADHO) have lamented the leakage of more than 10 million US dollars from the public treasury over 6 years; that is, between 2014 and 2020, due to the mismanagement of forest concessions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, during a press conference held in Kinshasa on Tuesday, March 5, after these concessions were identified in a report by the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF).