A former prime minister of Congo was found guilty of theft in a big failed farm project

Under President Felix Tshisekedi, one of the most well-known corruption cases against his predecessor’s government was the conviction of a previous prime minister of the Congo for embezzling millions from a massively unsuccessful agricultural endeavor.

Tuesday saw the conviction of Matata Ponyo Mapon, the prime minister under then-President Joseph Kabila from 2012 to 2016, in a $245 million embezzlement case. He received a 10-year sentence of forced labor, according to the Constitutional Court.

In this case, the court convicted Christo Grobler, a South African businessman, and Deogratias Mutombo, the former head of Congo’s central bank, to five years of hard labor.

All three were tried in absentia and are not currently in detention. According to Laurent Onyemba, Ponyo’s attorney, who is in Kinshasa, the case against him was unjust and driven by politics, he told Reuters. Authorities in the Congo think Mutombo is in Belgium and Grobler is in South Africa.

It was billed as the first of 22 massive agricultural projects to be launched under Kabila, and it contained a massive maize field 260 kilometers southeast of Kinshasa. However, three years after production started, the venture collapsed in 2017. Its South African operator departed the nation, claiming the government had not reimbursed them.

Tshisekedi’s investigators started looking into the actions of the previous government, and the case was opened in 2021.

Since late 2023, Kabila has been abroad, primarily in South Africa, having agreed to resign in 2018 after nearly 20 years in office. Tshisikedi’s party disputes the government’s accusations that he has ties to the M23 rebels, who are supported by Rwanda and have taken over parts of eastern Congo.