Siera Leone Telegraph: 21 July 2025:
A new report published last week by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), says that Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) minister – Guy Loando and his wife controlled over a third of the shares of a newly formed company that won a $25 million deal to work on improving a key highway in 2019.
According to the report, Guy Loando – a senator at the time, later shifted his family’s stake to his wife’s brother-in-law.
OCCRP’s investigation finds that SIC, the company that was part-owned by Loando and his relatives, was subcontracted in deals worth nearly $70 million to work on a state-backed highway project led by a Chinese consortium.
The first $25 million deal was secured while Loando, then a newly-sworn-in Congolese senator, was a shareholder. Later that year he shifted his stake to his wife’s brother-in-law.
The Chinese consortium running the highway is led by a company owned by business magnate Cong Maohuai, who Loando previously worked for as a lawyer and whom he has described as a “mentor.”
An internal document shows the DRC’s financial watchdog agency has accused the Cong-led consortium of failing to declare millions in toll revenues and inflating the budgets for construction projects on the highway, including stretches that SIC worked on. No charges were ever brought.
Experts said the findings highlighted the risk of public officials or their associates potentially improperly benefitting from infrastructure contracts.
Loando said he “received no personal benefit” from SIC.
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