Congo DR ex-prime minister sentenced to 10 years in prison for embezzlement in farm project

A constitutional court in the Congo Democratic Republic has sentenced the country’s former Prime Minister, Matata Ponyo Mapon, to 10 years in prison for embezzling millions from a huge failed agriculture venture in the giant Central African country.

The trial is one of the highest-profile corruption cases brought under President Felix Tshisekedi.

Mapon, who served as prime minister from 2012-2016 under then-President Joseph Kabila, was convicted on Tuesday in a case involving the embezzlement of $245 million.

A former governor of Congo’s central bank, Deogratias Mutombo, was sentenced to five years of forced labour in the case, as was Christo Grobler, a South African businessman.

None of the three was in custody; all were tried in absentia.

Ponyo’s lawyer, Laurent Onyemba, told journalists that his client is in Kinshasa, and the case against him was unfair and politically motivated.

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Congolese authorities believe Grobler is in South Africa and Mutombo is in Belgium.

The development, which included a giant corn farm 260 km southeast of Kinshasa, was touted as the first of 22 huge agricultural projects to be opened under Kabila, but collapsed in 2017, three years after production began.

The South African company hired to run it left the country, saying it had not been paid by the government.

The case was opened in 2021 after investigators appointed by Tshisekedi began investigating the previous government’s conduct.

Kabila, who agreed to step down in 2018 after almost two decades in power, has been out of the country since late 2023, mostly in South Africa.

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