Napoleon’
Ivor Powell
A bad time for embattled Zimbabwean businessman Billy Rautenbach, the one-time “Napoleon of Africa”, got even worse this week with the issuing of a government decree in the Democratic Republic of Congo summarily revoking Rautenbach’s lucrative mining concessions in the country.
Earlier this year, Rautenbach faced the liquidation of his Botswana-based Hyundai assembly and distribution business, leaving R1,3-billion in debt. This followed a series of court orders attaching cobalt and other minerals against debts owed to creditors of his Congo mining activities, as well as the seizure of three truckloads of documents from his Johannesburg home by agents of the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions.
The decree issued on Tuesday under the signature of strongman President Laurent Kabila’s Minister of Mines, Frederic Kibassa-Maliba, reattaches 20 mineral concessions held by Rautenbach, as well as terminating all deals between the Kabila regime and Rautenbach’s operating company, RidgePointe Overseas.
The decree charges that RidgePointe has failed to comply with ordinances in terms of which it was licensed to operate inside Congo.
It also accuses the Central Mining Group Corporation (CMG)- the formerly Rautenbach- dominated business partnership with the Congo government for marketing cobalt and other minerals – of failing to satisfy conditions set out in founding decrees, and of funnelling off profits to a “fictitious” legal entity.
In terms of the decree, Rautenbach’s mineral concessions revert with immediate effect to Congo cobalt and copper mining parastatal Gecamines – a body which, in his heyday, Rautenbach controlled both as board chair and CEO.
Rautenbach’s appointment to the controlling position in Gecamines, as well as the granting of lucrative cobalt and copper mining concessions to RidgePointe, came after interventions with the Congo authorities on his behalf by Zimbabwean Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangwangwa.
Shortly before Rautenbach was appointed, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe himself reportedly met Kabila to discuss ways in which Congo could offset the cost of Zimbabwe’s military commitment. Zimbabwe has maintained between 11E000 and 13E000 troops (a third of its army) inside Congo since the war flared up in late 1998 – at a cost of around US$30-million a month, according to the Zimbabwean government’s own figures.
Towards the end of 1999, however, the deal had already gone sour, as Rautenbach failed to turn around the flagging fortunes of the Gecamines operation. Amid allegations that six truckloads of cobalt entrusted to Rautenbach had simply gone missing, Kabila issued a presidential decree in November, relieving Rautenbach of his executive position in Gecamines and replacing him with Belgian national George Forrest. At this point, however, Rautenbach retained his position on the board as well as his substantial concessions via RidgePointe.
Meanwhile, lawyers representing Rautenbach this week appeared in the Constitutional Court to challenge the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions’s seizure of his documents as a violation of his right to privacy. The seizure by the directorate’s asset forfeiture unit was overturned by the high court, which referred the constitutionality of the seizure to the Constitutional Court. The asset forfeiture unit subsequently secured the documents with a new search warrant, which the Pretoria High Court upheld.
The seized documents are understood to include enough detail to untie the tangle of Rautenbach’s business affairs. Among other things they are believed to detail the affairs and holdings of more than 150 offshore companies connected to the Rautenbach network.
There is evidence that many of these serve as fronts for interests in the Zimbabwean government, and meetings which led to the creation of RidgePointe itself were attended by members of not only Mugabe’s Cabinet, but also of Kabila’s. Rautenbach has repeatedly denied any connection with the Zimbabwean government in his business dealings.
According to sources close to the investigation, the cache of documents seized from Rautenbach’s home also include evidence of irregularities in Rautenbach’s handling of his licence to assemble and distribute Hyundai motorcars.