Companies and contracts under scrutiny
There are four main strands to the sweeping the anti-corruption investigations launched in the wake of President Abdelaz...
New pressure on China deals
The new government is divided on demands for a review of the $7bn China International Fund contracts
BLUE NOTES
Beijing is on the defensive this month, with China Export-Import Bank officials and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi publicly justifying its trade and investment strategies. Its officials say that China can give Africa something that the West cannot – at least not anymore. During the Cold War, superpowers justified their actions and ignored what African governments did with the cash and arms readily given to them. However, a number of cases involving the diverting of Chinese funds suggests that no-strings-attached policies do not necesarrily lead to ‘win-win’ cooperation. In Uganda, Parliament is investigating how US$5 million of a $106 mn. Chinese credit line for a national communications network instead funded a radio system for the security services at the Commonwealth Meeting in 2007. In Congo-Kinshasa, about half of a $50 mn. Chinese payment to the mining company Gécamines has disappeared. Instead of helping to build infrastructure or to pay public sector wages, Chinese finance has allowed politicians to pursue their own interests. Instead of benefiting long term Chinese interests, it has helped unaccountable governments. If Chinese aid is going to be ‘win-win’ for Africans, Beijing has to find a way to ensure that its investment reaches its intended destination.
How militias control the mines
Prominent Congolese businessmen with connections to rebel groups in the conflict-ridden North and South Kivu Provinces are largely responsible for the illegal export of quantities of tin and tantalum to Asia via Rwanda, according to research produced by United Nations experts. The trade is facilitated by international companies based in Rwanda.
Reshuffling Luanda's Beijing connection
The news that José dos Santos da Silva Ferreira is to head a new super ministry which will oversee Chinese contracts and projects is a strong vote of no-confidence by President José Eduardo dos Santos in the former head of the Gabinete de Reconstrução Nacional, General Helder van Kopelilpa. Before the 8 February cabinet reshuffle, Kopelipa and the GRN had managed the US$6.5 billion in oil-backed credit lines that China has extended to Angola since 2004 and also the infrastructure projects that they have financed. Da Silva Ferreira, a relative Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) unknown, is now at the forefront of Sino-Angolan affairs.
Victory for the Kinshasa vultures
The execution of the US$6 billion ore-for-infrastructure deal originally signed in April 2008 between the Congolese state and Chinese companies China Railway Group and Sinohydro has suffered a setback. On 10 February, the Hong Kong High Court of Appeal decided to freeze, at the request of the United States ‘vulture fund’ FG Hemisphere Associates LLC, $221 million due from the Chinese companies in entry fees for their access to more than 10 mn. tonnes of copper and 600,000 tonnes of cobalt reserves.
Banda bags a billion
Zambia does not always get what it wants or what it wants at the right time. President Rupiah Banda went on a 10-day official visit to China in late February and came back with a raft of promises of new investments, even in agriculture, just when the political class is focused on floods and food shortages. Oppositionists argue that Banda spends more time in the air than in his country.
BLUE NOTES
Beijing is on the defensive this month, with China Export-Import Bank officials and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi publicly justifying its trade and investment strategies. Its officials say that China can give Africa something ...
Monuc moves out
The United Nations announced in early March that it would begin to withdraw its peacekeeping mission, the Mission des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo (Monuc) from Congo-Kinshasa. The first troop withdrawals are set for June with drawdown to be complete by next year but the nations which supply the peacekeeping troops are complaining that missions like Monuc, one of the most robust operations in recent UN history, have complex and unachievable goals. India is amongst the chief contributors to Monuc and an important member of peacekeeping missions throughout the world: now its politicians are asking how future UN missions can avoid muddled mandates that achieve very little.
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