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Controversial Israeli businessman Dan Gertler is to return various mining and oil assets in exchange for the charges being dropped.
On February 24, the DRC government concluded an amicable agreement with Ventora, the company of Israeli businessman Dan Gertler. The Congolese State will thus recover disputed mining and oil assets valued at more than two billion dollars. In a press release published Thursday, the sulphurous billionaire, who acted as an intermediary on the largest contracts in the country for nearly 20 years, said he welcomed this agreement.
In his press release published Thursday, March 3, Dan Gertler thanks President Félix Tshisekedi and his team for the work “ in-depth and meticulous that has been carried out ». « This agreementhe writesputs an end to the impasse in which we found ourselves and allows us to move forward ».
Although it represents, in his words, “ considerable personal cost “, Dan Gertler ensures respect” fully agree “. He further states that ” all permits and licenses held by the Gertler Group will be returned “. For the billionaire, he was ” vital to find a new way forward “. Negotiation was therefore in his eyes the only way out: “ It is neither in my interest, nor in the interest of the people of the DRC, that assets such as the Lake Albert Blocks be mired in international arbitration in perpetuity. ».
US sanctions
In the preamble to this press release, Dan Gertler poses as a victim. ” I’m devastated by the image that’s been created about me “, he declares, he who denounces” the systematic pointings and the incessant criticisms to which it was confronted, culminating in he adds, devastating US sanctions ».
The United States accuses the Israeli businessman of having caused the DRC to lose nearly a billion and a half dollars in tax revenue in the 2010s. Washington has therefore placed this close friend of Joseph Kabila under sanctions since 2017 She suspects him of “ opaque and corrupt mining and oil contracts “. According to the Israeli daily HaaretzDan Gertler would have sent emissaries in recent months precisely to negotiate with the American authorities the lifting of these sanctions.