The EconomistJune 27th 2020 Middle East & Africa 372 $100,000tothegovernment’sNationalDe-
velopmentFundora propertyinvestment
of $200,000thatcanbe soldoff infive
years.Nigerians,saysMrMalgwi,areespe-
ciallykeenonCaribbeanpassports,which
canbehadinjustthreemonths.
SouthAfricansandKenyansseemtofa-
vour residency in sunny Portugal. The
cheapestoptionistobuyanoldruralvilla
for as littleas €280,000 ($315,000). For
thosehankeringafterEuropeanUnionciti-
zenship,a “donation”of€650,000tothe
governmentofMalta,toppedupbyhalfa
millioneurosininvestment,shoulden-
surethata sleekburgundypassportarrives
inthepost.Thecashthatcountriesearn
fromtheseschemesaddsup.InDominica
annual inflows from foreigners buying
citizenshipequal10%ofgdp.
Still,someworryaboutthese“golden
passports”.DidierReynders,theeuJustice
Commissioner,fearstheycanbeusedfor
money-laundering and recently warned
thatcovid-19shouldnotbeusedasanex-
cuse to rundodgy citizenshipschemes.
LastyearCyprusmovedtostripcitizenship
from 26 investors after“mistakes”were
madeinvettingthem.Amongthemisa
Kenyantycoonwhohasappearedincourt
onallegationsoftaxevasion.Citizenship
firmsareatpainstopointoutthattheyvig-
orouslyscreentheirclients(thoughtheul-
timateresponsibility, theyarecarefulto
add,lieswithgovernments).
Dowell-heeledAfricanseyeinga “gold-
enpassport”needtograbonenowbefore
theyalldisappear?Probablynot,leastofall
inMalta,wherethefamilylawfirmofthe
primeminister,RobertAbela,hada licence
tosellMaltesepassports(itstoppeddoing
soafterhetookofficein2020).Onewayto
reducethedemandforsecondpassports
wouldbetomakeiteasierforAfricansto
visitandworkinrichcountries.Untilthen,
theirbestbetmaybetocopyanotherNige-
rianbusinessmanwhorecentlygota pass-
portfromDominicaandresoundinglyde-
clares:“Itisa life-changer.” 7P
oliticians areso rarely punished for
stealing public money in the Democrat-
ic Republic of Congo that some find the
idea absurd. Perhaps that is why Vital Ka-
merhe, the president’s former chief of staff,
laughed aloud as a judge condemned him
to 20 years in prison on June 20th.
Footage of his trial was live-streamed.
His bedraggled appearance, unshaven in a
blue prison jacket, elicited little sympathy.
He was found guilty of stealing $48m ear-
marked for building homes for the poor.
Few believe his protestations of innocence.
(He says the charges were purely political.)
Mr Kamerhe (pictured below on the left)
is the most senior Congolese politician
ever to be put away for graft. “We are happy,
the big fish has been sentenced,” says an in-
terpreter in Kinshasa, the capital. “It is a
good start for the rule of law in Congo.”
Yet it was hardly a model case. Raphael
Yanyi Ovungu, the judge who had presided
over most of the hearing, died suddenly in
May. Initially the police said that he had
suffered a heart attack. However, an aut-
opsy revealed that he had been stabbed sev-
eral times in the head. Somehow, this detail
had escaped the cops’ attention. The au-
thorities, who have now started a murder
investigation, have yet to explain how the
assailant slipped past armed policemen
guarding the judge’s house.Mr Kamerhe’s claim that he was prose-
cuted for political reasons is not absurd.
Even if he did steal a heap of public money,
he would hardly be the first Congolese poli-
tician to do so. His punishment may have
as much to do with his ambition as his
morals. He was powerful enough to be
feared. He held various senior posts under
Mobutu Sese Seko, Congo’s dictator for
three decades. He then worked for Laurent
Kabila, the rebel who deposed Mobutu in- After Kabila was murdered in 2001, he
helped his son Joseph win a dodgy election
in 2006. He fell out with the second Presi-
dent Kabila and later teamed up with an op-
position figure, Félix Tshisekedi (pictured
right). Mr Tshisekedi was then handed the
keys to the presidency by Mr Kabila after a
brazenly rigged election in 2018.
Mr Kamerhe’s repeated turncoatery
may have irked Mr Kabila, who still calls
most of the shots in Kinshasa. A pre-elec-
tion pact with Mr Tshisekedi that would
have allowed him to run for president in
the next election in 2023 may have blunted
the incumbent’s incentive to protect him.
Pierre-Olivier Sur, one of Mr Kamerhe’s
lawyers, says he was convicted for the “pur-
pose of exclusion in the coming election”
and that he “swears his innocence” before
the Congolese people.
Mr Tshisekedi may have needed some-
one to blame for his administration’s many
failures. His big infrastructure projects
have often stalled. A flyover that was sup-
posed to ease congestion in Kinshasa
stands half-built. That plan to build homes
for the poor has delivered little. Also sen-
tenced to 20 years alongside Mr Kamerhe
was Jammal Samih, a Lebanese business-
man whose company was allegedly paid
$57m for 1,500 prefabricated houses. Prose-
cutors say most of that cash has vanished.
The imf and World Bank, which this
week approved a $1bn aid package, are
pressing Mr Tshisekedi to reduce graft. Mr
Kamerhe’s conviction will doubtless give
him a good talking point. But it also puts Mr
Tshisekedi in a quandary. For although he
needs to satisfy donors that he is cleaning
up, he would rather do so without annoy-
ing Mr Kabila, whose family has extensive
business interests and whose party has
more than two-thirds of the seats in parlia-
ment—and thus has the power to impeach
the president.
The case has knocked a troublesome ri-
val to Mr Tshisekedi out of the running in
the next election. But it has also weakened
him in his tussle for power with Mr Kabila
by depriving him of support in Bukavu, Mr
Kamerhe’s home town. Protesters there
burned tyres when they heard the verdict.
Mr Kamerhe and Mr Samih have been
packed off to Makala prison in Kinshasa,
where thousands of inmates are crammed
together in stinking cells. Even there, the
graft may continue: guards are known to
take backhanders in exchange for giving
inmates a bit more space and comfort.
After decades of colonial plunder and loot-
ing by politicians, one trial will not be
enough to convince most Congolese that
the thieves at the top will be held to ac-
count. But it is a start. 7Vital Kamerhe, an aide to the president, gets 20 years for graftCorruption in CongoLaughing all the way to the slammer
Smile! It’s candid Kamerhe