DRC Mining Chiefs Fired

150 150 Rapaport News

(Rapaport…November 4, 2002) All members of the board that oversees the Congolese state diamond mining company, the Societe Miniere de Bakwange (MIBA), have been dismissed.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President, Joseph Kabila, fired the board’s chairman, Jean-Charles Okoto, and the other members on November 3. Officials did not give a specific reason for the move. Okoto and other officials were linked to the conflict diamond trade in a recent United Nations (UN) report, but a presidential spokesman said that was not the reason they were dismissed.

“This measure by the president has nothing to do with the report from the UN panel,” spokesman Kikaya Bin Karubi said. It is “in line with the general restructuring that the president undertakes from time to time in the public sector.”