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  • Prosecutors in DR Congo have asked parliament to lift the immunity of former prime minister Augustin Matata Ponyo so that he can face a probe into embezzlement of public funds, an official said Monday. He is the latest public figure to come under scrutiny over alleged corruption since President Felix Tshisekedi took office in January 2019. "The general prosecutor's office has asked the Senate to lift the parliamentary immunity of two senators, Matata Ponyo and Ida Kamaji," a senior prosecutor at the Court of Cassation told AFP. "There is serious evidence of their involvement in the embezzlement of funds" for a rural development project, the source said. Matata Ponyo, who was in office from 2012 to 2016, said on Sunday he was ready to face the allegations, which he dismissed as "packed with untruths, packed with lies". "I am not afraid of anything. I am ready to appear before justice" even if "injustice must prevail over justice," he told a press conference in Kinshasa, shortly after returning from Guinea. In November, the state spending watchdog, the IGF, reported that $205 million (168 million euros) had been plundered out of $285 million that had been disbursed for a pilot agro-industrial scheme in Bukangalonzo, 250 kilometres (155 miles) southeast of the capital. IGF chief Jules Alingete said the project had been deliberately torpedoed in order to siphon off funds. Six people allegedly involved in the affair have been identified, including three "covered by immunity." Matata Ponyo stepped down as prime minister in November 2016 after serving for four years under then president Joseph Kabila, and became a senator. To take effect, the lifting of his parliamentary immunity must still be approved in a vote in plenary session, but the affair has been front-page news in DR Congo for days. Tshisekedi took office in January 2019, vowing to make the fight against corruption a priority of his mandate. His ally and former chief of staff Vital Kamerhe is behind bars, after being sentenced to 20 years in prison last June in another embezzlement case, with more than $50 million at stake. Several prominent figures from the camp of former president Joseph Kabila have also been implicated in cases of the misappropriation of public funds. bmb/hba/nb/ri/txw
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  • DR Congo prosecutor seeks to quiz ex-PM in graft probe
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