In this country where corruption and embezzlement by the administration are sadly commonplace, the Congolese Ministry of Primary Education has outdone itself. The Inspectorate General of Finance (IGF) accused him, Saturday, March 19, of having embezzled nearly 400,000 dollars allocated to the organization of the first African school football championship in DR-Congo (DRC).
For this school competition undertaken by the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa) and organized in Kinshasa, the Congolese State has released more than a million dollars. The Ministry of Primary, Secondary and Technical Education (EPST) received $400,000 to help organize the event.
Villainous behavior
Unfortunately, “the finance inspectors discovered” especially “that out of an alleged payment of 120,000 dollars to Transco (public public transport company) for the rental of the buses, only 16,000 were actually given to this carrier”denounced Jules Alingete, head of the IGF.
For prints on T-shirts for Kinshasa students invited to watch the matches in the country’s biggest stadium, “the invoices presented were multiplied by ten by agents of the Ministry of EPST”denounced Jules Alingete, who sent his file to the prosecution for legal proceedings.
Defense of the Minister of Education
The head of the IGF has a “hidden agenda” against the Minister of EPST and the policy of free primary education of President Félix Tshisekedi, reacted in a letter Eddy Mwanzo, director of cabinet of the Minister of EPST.
The “Reckless and incomprehensible remarks clearly show the relentlessness and lack of objectivity that characterize your ongoing investigation, the conclusions of which will undoubtedly be biased”he added, referring to the head of the IGF while announcing his intention to take legal action.
One of the most corrupt countries in the world
At the beginning of the year, the Court of Auditors had established that of the 50.7 million dollars disbursed by the IMF to fight against the Covid-19 epidemic, a little more than 31 million were redistributed in opaque ways, without respecting the procedures, without justification. The Ministry of Health would have touched only touched two million. In November 2021, leaked documents from the International Gabonese and French Bank BGFI established that former President Joseph Kabila had embezzled some $138 million from the Congolese.
And in March 2020, former health minister Oly Ilunga was sentenced to five years of hard labor for embezzling more than $400,000 intended for the response to Ebola virus disease.
Nothing changes
These practices are all the more scandalous as the DRC is one of the countries with the most important natural resources in the world and where the majority of the population lives on less than 1.90 dollars a day. President Tshisekedi had placed the fight against the embezzlement of public funds and corruption as one of the priorities of his mandate, which began in January 2019. But three years later, the DRC still occupies the 169e place out of 180 countries in the 2021 Transparency International ranking.