Motion targets Muhindo Nzangi over $57 million
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Beto
MP Hermione Bolumbe Bakando filed a motion of censure against Muhindo Nzangi Butondo, the Congolese state minister for agriculture, over the alleged embezzlement of $57 million from the Youth Entrepreneurship Project in Agriculture and Agribusiness. The minister says the funds remain available and that more than 1,000 young people have already received funding, Beto reports.
National MP Hermione Bolumbe Bakando, elected in Mont-Amba, Kinshasa, filed a motion of censure on 23 October against Muhindo Nzangi Butondo, state minister in charge of agriculture and food security. She accuses him of the alleged embezzlement of $57 million intended for the Youth Entrepreneurship Project in Agriculture and Agribusiness (PEJAB).
The filing came after a parliamentary oversight debate held on 21 October. MPs had asked how many companies had been created, how many young people had received funding and how resources from the African Development Bank had been used. Muhindo Nzangi replied that the funds remained available and that disbursements were continuing. He mentioned training in fish farming, livestock breeding, mushroom cultivation and agricultural processing, and said that more than 1,000 young people had already received funding.
Hermione Bolumbe Bakando deemed these responses insufficient and said she had evidence supporting her suspicions. She also mentioned a note from the chief of staff to the president that had allegedly alerted the ministry, without making the document public. The minister, for his part, presented the allocation as 40 units of account, but the remainder of the amount is not available in the information reported by Beto.
No date for debate or a vote on the motion has been announced. The MP had announced her intention to file the motion after the parliamentary session of 21 October, a step reported in the article on the motion against Muhindo Nzangi.
