The company that benefited the most from public investments in health over the period 2014-2020 is ASPERBRAS. it was and still appears responsible for constructing the 12 general hospitals, including the Edith Lucie Bongo Ondimba Hospital in Oyo.
The projects launched in February 2014 were to be executed in 37 months for 30 billion FCFA, or approximately 25% of the 2015 health budget.
Asperbras is a Congolese-Brazilian company previously managed by the notorious Portuguese-Brazilian and Congolese sports agent José Veiga. According to several investigations by Global Witness and Portuguese justice, Asperbras, and José Veiga were involved in the corruption of Congolese agents and money laundering.
« Around November 2013, Asperbras LLC, a Delaware-based subsidiary of the Asperbras Group, invoiced approximately €491 million to the Délégation Générale des Grands Travaux (DGGT), part of the Congolese Ministry of Land Planning, for services rendered.
At the time, 491 million euros was the equivalent of approximately $658 million. Around November 28, 2013, a bank account belonging to Asperbras LLC in Portugal, at Banco Espirito Santo («BES»), received a transfer of approximately €491 million.
This transfer included instructions that appeared to refer to the Congolese Directorate General of the Treasury, or «Directorate General of the Treasury,» another public agency.
Prior to this transfer, Asperbras LLC had less than three thousand dollars in its BES bank account.»
José Veiga, then director of ASPERBRAS Congo, bought an apartment worth $7 million in Trump Tower in New York for Claudia Sassou Nguesso. The apartment purchase may have been an attempt in 2014 to gain support from the Republican Party and its rising star, Donald Trump, on the eve of the 2015 constitutional change The apartment has never been occupied; it would, therefore, have achieved his objective of secretly financing the campaign of candidate Trump.
According to Global Witness reports and publications by Le Monde, the beneficiaries of corruption by Asperbras and José Veiga were Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, Claudia Sassou Nguesso, and the then Minister of Finance, Gilbert Ondongo. Therefore, to a company with no previous achievements in the construction of hospitals and whose manager is being prosecuted for money laundering, the Congolese authorities have entrusted the most ambitious investment project in health since independence.
According to the PWYP-Congo 2020-2022 report on the health system, the projects in Loango, Pointe-Noire (PATRA), and Djiri-Brazzaville only had an execution rate of 26.8%. The budget of five hundred billion FCFA allocated for the continuation of construction work on the 12 hospitals is noted as 91.40% disbursed, but not executed by the operator Asperbras Congo.
The company is domiciled at 129 rue de Reims, Poto-Poto Brazzaville roundabout, which is also the address of its director, Leonardo Bosso Belussi.
As specified in the Official Journal of September 5, 2013, Leonardo Bosso Belussi was appointed on June 27, 2013, as administrator of a subsidiary, Asperbras Véhicules Congo. Stalbridge Finance was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands on July 4, 2013. It was still active in March 2024 and was owned by Francisco Donizetti Belussi, the father, and his son, Leonardo Bosso Belussi.
In Brazil, the father and son appear as directors of a family company, BELUSSI CONSULTORIA EM GESTAO EMPRESARIAL LTDA. The link between the structures in Brazil, the British Virgin Islands, and Asperbras in Congo is not specified.
However, on December 23, 2020, the Semaine Africaine newspaper was notified of the absorption of Asperbras LTD Sarlu under Congolese law headed by Bosso Belussi Leonardo by Asperbras LTD BVI headed by GERALDO Hypolito Kulaif. Asperbras BVI is, coincidentally, at the same address as StallBridge Finance.
Finally, Asperbras Development LLC is registered in London with directors Geraldo Hypolito Kulaif, José Roberto Colnaghi, and Asperbras LTD Sarlu, the Congolese branch.
In Asperbras Development LLP’s 2022 financial report, the company admits to holding loan notes in a Luxembourg entity that went through insolvency proceedings in 2014.
Started in 2014 and planned for 37 months, the 12 general hospitals project by Asperbras is a bottomless pit of Congolese public finances. The first works, unfinished/unused, are already falling into disrepair, and additional budgets are disbursed, but the operator does nothing.
It is incomprehensible that successive Ministers of Health have not withdrawn this project from the failing operator.
Collectif Sassoufit 