BREAKING NEWS

Mining royalties Glencore said were for Congo went to Israeli billionaire

KINSHASA - Tens of millions of dollars in royalties and signing bonuses that Glencore told an independent transparency board it had paid to Congo's state mining company actually went to a business controlled by Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler, advocacy group Global Witness said in a report on Friday.
Glencore-controlled Kamoto Copper Co (KCC) told the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in 2013 and 2014, in publicly-available disclosures, the payments were made to Gecamines, the state company.
EITI audits payments by mining companies to governments annually, an initiative the companies sign up to voluntarily.
Glencore acknowledged in a statement to Reuters that KCC paid the royalties and signing bonuses in 2013 and 2014 to Africa Horizons Investment Ltd (AHIL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Gertler's Fleurette Group, rather than Gecamines. But Glencore said this was what Gecamines instructed it to do. Glencore said the payments to AHIL "discharged KCC's obligation to make these payments to Gecamines."
Glencore said KCC made the payments to AHIL "in accordance with the payment instruction from Gecamines and the subsequent tri-partite royalties agreement between KCC, Gecamines and AHIL."