On March 29, the former Minister of Telecommunications, Transport and the Environment, Oyé-Oyé Guilavogui, appeared before the Court of Repression of Economic and Financial Offenses (Crief). He is being prosecuted for embezzlement of public funds, illicit enrichment and money laundering.
In jail since April 2022, the former minister joined the Public Administration in 1982 and was, for 11 years, minister of Alpha Grimpeur. Oyé-Oyé Guilavogui owns a lot of property: plots, houses, plantations, cars, bank accounts.
At the head of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in 2014, Oyé-Oyé Guilavogui undertook to relaunch the Guinean Telephone Company (Sotelgui). Fifty million dollars would have been disbursed for the work, but the money would have been embezzled by the former minister. At the bar, the accused declares that this fund did not appear in the budget of the department, and that he would not have embezzled anything from it. He invites the public prosecutor to brandish the proof that he misappropriated the substance. According to him, the money was used to purchase equipment from Sotel-guigne and that even the launch of the public telephone operator proved “conclusive, there was only operation left”. But, continues Oyé-Oyé, the management of the company would have opposed it to the Presi Alpha Grimpeur. He wanted to entrust the management of the box to a public entity, but Oyé-Oyé Guilavogui wanted a private operator, because “Sotelgui is a dairy cow” in the past. The failure to revive the company is due to “governance problems”. He states that he was not associated with the management of the fund. “Before I left the ministry, the fund was completely spent. Equipment had been tested. So the project was almost finished. It was Huawei who had benefited from the contract. Know that I did not embezzle the money, we cannot embezzle the fund of a donor, ”says Oyé Guilavogui.
Underwater cable
To provide the bled with internet network infrastructure, Oyé-Oyé Guilavogui claims to have made a dozen trips abroad, canvassed investors and partners. However, the public prosecutor accuses him of opaque management of 328 million dollars. “The submarine cable has bypassed Guinea three times, without the country benefiting from it. I revolutionized the internet in Guinea. I had the submarine cable deployed in Guinea, as well as the optical fiber in Conakry and inside the country”, defends the former minister. However, he acknowledges having awarded a contract to his security company, within the framework of the installation of fiber optics by Guinéenne de large bande (Guilab): “I did not need to make a call for tenders for five guards to monitor the Guilab facilities. It’s a house, it’s an office”, he explains, before specifying that he co-manages the company with a friend.
Some goods
Judge Alsény Mabinty Camara asks if former Minister Oyé-Oyé Guilavogui had declared his assets when he took office in 2011. The accused answers in the affirmative and declares that the major part of his assets would have been acquired well before he is not a minister. Moustapha Mariama Diallo of the public ministry declares that Oyé-Oyé Guilavogui has a duplex in Sangoyah, another in Kipé. According to him, he is the owner of a plot in Sangoyah, worth more than one billion Guinean francs. There would be some in Kipé, in Kaporo, also houses in Kindia and plantations in Macenta. The accused acknowledges having built at least ten mosques in Kindia before 2010, but explains that the land of Kipé is one of his achievements during his eleven years as minister of Alpha Grimpeur. “I built my house in Sangoyah in 1996,” he says. “I wonder by what miracle you identified my areas,” he says, to the public prosecutor.
“No accounting document brandished”
The public prosecutor indicates that the salary of ten million in 2011 (Minister) and eleven million in 2013 (Ministry of State) does not allow Oyé-Oyé Guilavogui to acquire the aforementioned assets. “I’m a businessman. I did it in parallel with my functions “as a minister. “What property did you acquire during the Alpha Condé regime? », asks the civil party. Oyé-Oyé states that they are rare. He cites in particular an area in Kipé that he allegedly bought following the resale of another in the Airport district.
The defense believes that no audit or financial control report pinned his client for eleven years in government. It indicates “that no misappropriation amount was exposed, no accounting document was presented”.
The case was adjourned to April 5, for the production of exhibits and the defense request for release.
Yaya Doumbouya