- President Felix Tshisekedi has sacked the chairman of Gécamines, the largest state-owned mining company in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- The President had declared that reforming and Cleaning up of the mining sector is of high priority for him.
- He had been under heavy international pressure to remove Mr. Mulimbi.
President Felix Tshisekedi has sacked the chairman of Gécamines, the largest state-owned mining company in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The President had declared that reforming and Cleaning up the mining sector is of high priority for him. He had been under heavy international pressure to remove Mr Mulimbi.
Albert Yuma Mulimbi a close ally of the former DRC president Joseph Kabila, headed Gécamines since 2010. He was one among the last relatives of the former president to retain his position in Mr. Tshisekedi’s government. Mr. Alphonse Kaputo Kalubi has been appointed as the new chairman of Gécamines and Mr. Thambwe Ngoy the company’s director-general.
Mr. Mulimbi had formulated the new DRC Mining Law (the mining code) in 2018. He claimed that he pulled the company out of bankruptcy and denied allegations that he was involved in multimillion-dollar corruption scandals. The sacking of Mr Mulimbi was welcomed by several people including Peter Pham, former US special envoy as ‘a break’ with the Kabila regime and a new beginning for DRC’s mining sector. He served as an administrator at the Central Bank of Congo. He is the chairman of the Federation of Enterprises in Congo, a private organisation that brings together all the major private sector companies in the DRC.
