One Country… two health systems

As a preamble to this report, we would like to express our appreciation for the efforts made, particularly by the Publish What You Pay Congo-B coalition and the reports on the Republic Health Account of the Ministry of Health and Population.

Our work has relied heavily on these earlier resources.

However, it differs because, not under the influence of self-censorship, it endeavors to draw up maps of the companies and people at the heart of the health system and analyze its structure.

A plethora of supervision calls for tenders in direct agreement awarded to the husband of the Minister of Health, a pharmaceutical distributor under the boot of a son of the President, a decree that institutionalizes health apartheid, etc.

The entire health system of the Republic of Congo has come under the microscope.

It appears to be a portrait of health segregation, of a country with two health systems: one for the enrichment of the President and his followers and another completely in ruins for the common Congolese.

Andrea Ngombet
Executive Director

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• Life expectancy: Life expectancy at birth in the Republic of Congo is approximately 64 years for men and 68 years for women

• Child mortality rate: The infant mortality rate is high, with approximately 56 deaths per 1000 live births

• Maternal mortality rate: The maternal mortality rate is also a concern, with approximately 383 deaths per 100,000 live births

• Access to healthcare: Health services, particularly in rural areas, may be limited due to inadequate infrastructure, shortage of medical staff, and financial barriers

• Main causes of mortality: Malaria, respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, and HIV/AIDS are among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the country

• Health spending: Public health spending as a percentage of GDP, 4.4% in 2020, is relatively low, which impacts the availability and quality of health services

• Healthcare infrastructure: Investments made to improve healthcare infrastructure, notably through the construction and renovation of hospitals and clinics, were entrusted to crooked actors who essentially embezzled the funds without delivering the work

The health budget averaged 8% of the national budget over the period. It generally remains lower than that of Defense, particularly during the elections’ run-up (2015, 2016, 2021) and during the post-electoral military repression in the Pool region (2016-2018). Concerning the allocation and execution rates of the health budget, they are as follows:

Year	State budget	MSP allocation rate	Execution rate
2015	2715066000000	14%	31%
2016	3608729000000	5%	43%
2017	2729329000000	5%	54%
2018	1303629000000	11%	37%

• The cost of medical evacuations abroad represented almost the entire 2019 health budget. The criteria for the State’s support of this are not known

• Decree 2013-691 of October 21, 2013, creates a hospital reserved for the President and his family. This hospital, inaugurated in 2015, remained unused before undergoing renovation in 2021 for four billion two hundred million FCFA

• Three main national foundations also deal with health. The Congo Assistance Foundation, created by Madame Sassou Nguesso, is the oldest and declares oil companies as its donor/partner; the Generation À Venir  Foundation under Swiss and Congolese law, of which Edgar Nguesso is honorary President, and the Perspectives D’Avenir Foundation, founded by Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso. The sources of funding for Edgar and Denis Christel’s foundations are unknown

• ASPERBRAS Congo, a company with no experience in hospital construction, was appointed in 2014 for the Ministry of Health’s most ambitious project since independence. The projects were to be carried out in 37 months for 30 billion FCFA, approximately 25% of the 2015 health budget. The project is still incomplete despite a budget extension of five hundred billion FCFA allocated to continue the work construction in 2022

• RAYZONE GROUP: For four hundred forty-four million and thirty thousand FCFA, or approximately 2% of the COVID fund, the Ministry ordered a COVID geolocation application from this Israeli company via Chérif Aidara, the husband of Minister Lydia MIKOLO. Despite a 100% deposit before delivery on May 28, 2020, there is no trace as of March 2024 of deployment or delivery of the application
  
• PAMI Partner, formerly Serenity Spa, is a Swiss company owned by Judicaelle Mouandinga Darboux Okemba, the daughter of Jean-Dominique Okemba, the boss of the Congolese secret services and chairman of the board of directors of BGFI Congo. In 2022, the annual report of the General Directorate for Public Procurement Control mentions Pami Partner in the list of contracts awarded for a total amount of 2,880,203,909 FCFA, or approximately 4,757,411 USD. In comparison, the annual budget of the Brazzaville University Hospital is five hundred million FCFA

• The ghost contractors are M2R-COMPANY M.C., KOUMOU CONSTRUCTION KC SARLU, BD. COM SARL, MAISON AUBAINE M.A S.A.R.L.U, Natalia Sarlu, Solution Juste Confort, Pierre Anne Construction, etc. In most cases, there is no public record of contracts, calls for tenders, or previous activities

• The pharmaceutical cartels: except Biocare Congo, which appears to be a subsidiary of NG Group, Claudia Sassou Nguesso’s company,  Laborex Congo, Ubipharm Congo, and Société Equatoriale Pharmaceutique are controlled by CFAO Healthcare. Ubipharm Congo is headed by Hyacinthe Ingani, a PCT deputy close to Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso

• As a wholesaler, LABOREX CONGO and SEP are said to have participated in the destocking of contaminated blood in Congo in the 1980s

• In 1989, Congo, Laborex’s stronghold, was the African country most affected by HIV with 62.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants; a hidden contaminated blood scandal?

The 2022 transition schedule for social expenditure awaiting payment by the Ministry of Health and Population (MSP) allows us to extract the first list of 34 companies in the health sector.

We first note the participation of the Génération à Venir Foundation of Edgard Nguesso, who is none other than the President’s nephew.

Then, we find Pami Partners of Judicaelle Mouandinga Okemba, daughter of the head of the secret services Jean-Dominique Okemba, and the UBIPHARM network led by Hyacinthe Ingani, PCT deputy and brother of Minister Ingani, who are also present.

On the ITEM activity for human health and social action, the most recent national file of companies in Congo from the Ministry of the Economy lists 198 entities in quarter 3 of 2023.

This ITEM includes private clinics, analysis laboratories, and entrepreneurs in the digital health sector, such as Habib Cyril Nguesso’s ETS SYNWELL.

As the health accounts we examined highlight, the most significant item of health spending is medical evacuations abroad.

It remains impossible to know what criteria these evacuation benefits abroad are allocated.

The medical emergency given the deficiencies of local technical platforms? Relatives and political clientele? A black market for evacuation places?

For the year 2022, among the pending expenses of the MSP, there are 48 evacuations supported, including that of personalities such as Philippe Mvouo, head of the Superior Council for Press Freedom, the late minister Coussoud Mavoungou and even Eugène VItal, eldest son of Maurice Nguesso.

By compiling the amounts of evacuations from the operation mandate received by nature of the 2019 fiscal year budget, we obtain the estimate of one hundred and forty-three billion, nine hundred and ninety million, four hundred and fifty-seven thousand, eight hundred and twenty-three FCFA (143,990,457,823).

This amount represents almost the entire health budget for the financial year, which constitutes confirmation of the words of the 2016-2018 Health Account report.

The country’s leading hospitals are in a chronic situation of budgetary bankruptcy.

In 2018, according to figures from the leading union in the sector, they have the following salary arrears:

NAME OF THE STRUCTURE	SITUATION
Loandjili Hospital in Pointe-Noire	7 months of unpaid salaries for a payroll of 200,000,000 FCFA per month
Dolisie Hospital	21 months of unpaid salary arrears
Owando July 31 Hospital	10 months of unpaid salaries for a payroll of 3,800,000 FCFA
CHU of Brazzaville	5 months of unpaid salaries with a payroll of 898,989,570 FCFA
CNTS (National Blood Transfusion Center)	8 months of unpaid salary with a payroll of 90,000,000 FCFA

For comparison, Claudia Sassou’s New York apartment worth 6 million euros would cover 20 months of salary from Loandjili Hospital. In 2020, COVID-19 quickly became a new enrichment opportunity with misappropriation of donations and unexecuted over-the-counter deals.

Infectious and parasitic diseases such as malaria constitute the primary source of health expenditure for the Congolese. However, the free malaria care program for women and children is at a standstill. In 2018, Congo lost funding from the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria in the malaria component due to its classification as a lower middle-income country. However, even during the eligibility period, the free program only sporadically reached the targeted populations. For example, free antimalarials for women and children were unavailable in Moyoundzi in the Bouenza region. 

According to the professionals interviewed, the samples end up with street sellers at each delivery and become chargeable. In this locality, there was only one delivery in 2022 and none in 2024. 

In the Sangha region, the situation is even more severe. The free program is almost unknown and has never been effective in health structures.

In 2018, the causes of death in the postnatal period were infections (27.1%), malaria (24.7%), acute respiratory infections «ARI» (23.5%), gastroenteritis (11 %), malnutrition (6%), congenital malformations (1.8%) and HIV (1.3%). 

Regarding child mortality, the leading causes were malaria (54%), ARI (18.2%), diarrhea (16.9%), malnutrition (6.2%), meningitis ( 2%), HIV (0.7%), and other causes (2%). However, as the compilation shows, almost the entire budget for the year 2019, for example, was devoted to medical evacuations of personalities and their families based on unknown criteria. 

Failing to combat malaria, which is the leading cause of death among young children, is more than negligence; it is a crime.

There are 324 integrated health centers, 232 dispensaries, eight general hospitals, and 31 reference hospitals in the public sector. To this, we can add 54 private clinics, some of which belong to members of the presidential family.

However, with Decree 2013-691 of October 21, 2013, President Sassou Nguesso created the General Directorate of Health Services of the Presidency of the Republic. This health structure includes a management secretariat, a social service, an administrative and financial service, an equipment and supplies service, the presidential clinic, and the medical center.

The two health structures, the presidential clinic, and the medical center, are not attached to any of the health districts of the Ministry of Health; they depend directly on the presidential domain headed by Edgar Sassou Nguesso.

Therefore, the Presidential Clinic and the Medical Center are exceptional public health establishments.

As a public health establishment, the clinic and medical center should be accessible to any citizen following medical emergency criteria only. Still, it is at this level that the decree takes a strange turn.

Title 2 is confusing and suggests that the clinic is accessible to Presidency staff, but this is false. The title regulates the responsibilities of the General Directorate of Health Services of the Presidency of the Republic.

«It» (the general directorate of health services of the Presidency of the Republic) is responsible, in particular, for:

• Ensure clinical and paraclinical assessments of the President of the Republic and his family;

• Ensure medical care for the President of the Republic and his family;

• Ensure medical care for staff of the Presidency of the Republic;

• Ensure preventive medicine and occupational medicine activities for staff of the Presidency of the Republic;

In chapter 5, the decree stipulates that the clinic is exclusively dedicated to the medical needs of the President and his family.

Chapter 5: From the Presidential Clinic

Article 9: the Presidential Clinic is directed and run by a doctor with the director rank. it is responsible, in particular, for ensuring the clinical and paraclinical assessments of the President of the Republic and his family;

To ensure the medical care of the President of the Republic and his family;

To ensure, if necessary, the hospitalization of the President of the Republic and his family.

Article 10: The presidential clinic, in addition to the medical secretariat, includes:

• The operating room and intensive care unit;
• In radiology;
• The laboratory ;
• The pharmacy ;
• Specialized consulting firms;
• Hospital rooms.

Therefore, chapter 5 of the decree establishes a personal hospital for the President without defining what the term «and his family» covers. 

While the country is making colossal investments to create new general hospitals, this fully equipped President’s clinic does not appear in the health budget accounts, investments, or expenses. 

According to the PWYP Congo 2020-2022 report on the health system, the Presidency Hospital was built in 2015. Unused, it has deteriorated along with its equipment. It underwent reconstruction in 2021 for four billion two hundred million FCFA, a 20% overrun of the forecast budget of three billion five hundred million FCFA, only six years after its inauguration. 

How can we understand this accelerated deterioration of the Presidential Hospital? 

In 2016, the COGEMO clinic, which was associated with the interests of Claudia Sassou Nguesso, improved by acquiring cutting-edge imaging technology. 

In 2020, the presidential doctor, Alain Prosper Bouya, brother of the Minister of Major Works, founded the VERANO clinic with equipment similar to that planned for the presidential hospital.

Isn’t the monopolization of its equipment for the benefit of third parties the reason for the rapid deterioration of the presidential hospital?

The sixth chapter specifies that the medical center provides medical consultations and outpatient care for the Presidency of the Republic staff, as well as preventive medicine and occupational medicine activities.

The medical center does not have a radiology department, an operating and intensive care unit, or a specialized consultation room.

We are facing a situation of medical apartheid: a state-of-the-art clinic for the President and his family on one side and the minimum service for the staff on the other.

The fact that access to this clinic is reserved for the President and his family contradicts the logic of accessibility for all of public health establishments.

In 2016, 47% of Congo’s 5 million people were under 18, and according to the World Bank, around 44.5% of them lived below the national poverty line.

Rather than investing in a state-of-the-art wing in a public hospital like the CHU or even the military hospital of Brazzaville, the President created a personal health system for himself and his family through this decree.

For the rest of the Congolese staff and citizens, a paid health system is punctuated by reagents, medicines, doctors, tap water, and electricity shortages.

Actors in the Congolese health system, foundations are part of private health financing.

However, knowing how they finance themselves is difficult because there is no accessible national file where they can consult their annual accounts.

According to the Health Accounts 2019-2020 report, the financial contribution of NGOs and national foundations to financing the health system fell from 8.9% to 6.1%, respectively, in 2018 and 2020.

When they are not confessional or linked to sects, such as the Paul Fleury Foundation, which recruits for the Neoapostolic Church, a Swiss millenarian church, national foundations appear as philanthropic appendages of political figures. They are used to launder the reputation of personalities and prepare electoral candidacies. Electoral campaigns are often inseparable from free healthcare campaigns by foundations of personalities from the Congolese Labor Party.

Another function of foundations, besides reputational laundering, would be to be a «bribery box» between personalities and companies, particularly in the oil sector.

The contribution to improving the health of Congolese citizens appears only as a pretext, as health programs are sporadic and indexed to the electoral calendar.

In 2015, amid the debate on the constitution change, the Caravane Santé pour tous program of the Perspective d’avenir Foundation traveled the country with the ambition of supporting the Chemin d’avenir, the political project of the President of the Republic.

This confusion is observed down to the most minor level: each deputy director of administration now has his «foundation» to build up a political clientele and, from time to time, prides himself on social and health action. We can cite the case of the Matété Foundation of the independent senator from Niari, Jules Ignace Matété.

As part of this report, we analyze the three main national foundations: Congo Assistance, Generation A VENIR, and Perspectives d’Avenir.

In the Congolese landscape, the oldest charitable Foundation relating to health is the Congo Assistance Foundation, created and directed by the First Lady, Antoinette Tchibota Sassou Nguesso.

This Foundation would have been created in 1979 or 1984. It is impossible to decide on the year because there is no trace of its creation in the archives of the Official Journal of the Republic of Congo.

Is it a foundation under Congolese law? The question is valid.

There is a trace of the registration of a representation in France of Congo Assistance in 1998 with head office at Ms. Moranga Clémentine in Argenteuil.

The European representation of Congo Assistance has long been domiciled at 153 rue de l’Université, 75007 Paris, but it is not sure if this office still exists.

The board of directors in 2017 comprised PCT apparatchiks, the First Lady’s family, and personalities from Congolese oil and business.

We, therefore, find the oligarchs of the Congolese regime: Hubert Pendino, advisor to President Sassou, President of Socofran and the Banque La Congolaise des Banques; Aurelia Mendes, representative of TRAFIGURA in Congo; Maxime Gandzion of the GUNVOR scandal; Georgette Okemba, the wife of the boss of the Congolese secret services, etc.

In the Foundation board, we found Martin ITOUA, late President of the coordination of associations and networks of civil society in Congo (CARESCO) and the African Federation of Parents and Students (FAPE), as well as President of the Association of Parents of pupils and students of Congo (APEEC). Paul Obambi, head of the Brazzaville Chamber of Commerce, Dominique Picard, honorary consul of the United Kingdom in Congo Brazzaville, and several «Powerful Women,» mainly members of the PCT, were also present. Among them was Mrs. Charlotte Georgette MACKANDA OVOUNDA, identified as Lady of Nguesso’s company, the head of the association of Femmes Normaliennes de Mouyondzi, and African mother (aunt) of Bruno Itoua, the first president of the SNPC (National Society of Congo Oil), familiar with tax havens.

One of the Foundation’s main administrators is Blandine MALILA LUMANDE, the daughter of Antoinette Tchibota Sassou Nguesso.

It is to this Foundation that ENI, as part of the new contracts awarded to its Congolese branch, mentions in its report having donated €8.5 million in 2007.

In 2013, the Foundation financed €15 million to create the Brazzaville Cardiological Institute, run by Professor Alain Deloche, President of the French NGO La Chaîne de l’Espoir.

That is an investment equivalent to 2% of the 2015 health budget. We have found no trace of this Institute being put into operation.

By Decree No. 2013-147 of April 19, 2013, the Foundation was recognized as a public utility association. 

The Foundation claims to be a partner of RENCO, PUMA ENERGY, and BUROTOP IRIS. Respectively, the oil subcontractor of ENI, an oil company involved in the DIRTY DIESEL scandal, and a Congolese company whose charitable Foundation is headed by Diana Rihan Attye.

The website of this Foundation is down. The Foundation was declared in May 2009 to «support government action in accelerated municipalization initiated by the State» in health and education.

In 2013, the Foundation offered ten ambulances for the health districts of the Plateaux region. 

In 2015, a homonymous Miroir association was registered in Switzerland. The two associations, in Congo and Switzerland, are chaired by Carombo Okounou, son of the former general director of the national company LINA CONGO. Alongside Carombo Okounou is Edgard MBERE, son of the late presidential doctor Grégoire MBERE.

The Carombo and Mbere duo manage the Foundation on behalf of Honorary President Edgar Rufin Serge Nguesso.

Carombo Okounou is also the President of ACNIC, the Congolese agency that manages the allocation of domain names in the Republic of Congo (.CG).

Repeatedly between 2013 and 2019, Carombo Okounou created and dissolved the company OXONOFF & CO LTD in London.

Although the objective of this company is unclear, Carombo almost assumes control with Christian OTTA, a Briton of Congolese origin and boss of CNL Consultants in Créteil in France, as well as Lin Gerard Ganga-Zandzou, a German citizen of Congolese origin. The latter, Lin Gerard Ganga-Zandzou, is the health and well-being representative for Congo Brazzaville of the Denim Club G100, a group led by the Indian Doctor Harbeen Arora Rai, which notably includes Jean Todt.

The Foundation has several charitable activities, but it has been impossible to identify a funding source. While the involvement of the oil companies RENCO and PUMA is visible for the Congo Assistance Foundation, we do not know how the Foundation of Edgar Rufin Serge Nguesso is financed.

On the other hand, beyond the health sector, the Generation A VENIR Foundation has donated several to the Canadian school of Brazzaville, a private education structure. For the school’s inauguration, Edgar Nguesso and the tutelary minister are highlighted on the school’s Facebook page. Without information on the website or publication in the official journal, it was impossible to identify the school management. All that appears is the domain name ecolecanadienne.com of the school was registered in the USA by the company Privacy Protect, LLC. 

The confusion is such that we must ask ourselves if the Canadian school in Brazzaville is not the property of Edgar Nguesso. A great deal of opacity surrounds this probable emanation of the Foundation.

Edgar Nguesso was indicted in 2017 for «laundering the embezzlement of public funds.» The courts seized his apartment, a triplex in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine), France.

This is the most recent of the three main national foundations. It is registered under receipt number 246 of May 13, 2015, to participate in sustainable development in the education, culture, and health sectors.

However, the local press has been reporting on the activities of this Foundation since 2014. This inconsistency could be explained by administrative slowness. However, the newspaper Les Dépêches

 de Brazzaville assures that it was created in 2011 by the President’s son, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso.

The Foundation’s executive director is Mr. Okoko-Esseau, political advisor to the President of the Commission of the Economic Community of Central African States and executive secretary general of the Episcopal Commission for Migrants and Refugees (CEMIR).

The Foundation’s flagship health program, launched in 2015,  is directed by Doctor Florent-Aimé Bembé. The President of the Foundation, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, known as Kiki the Oilman, is a member of the political bureau of the Congolese Labor Party and a member of the National Assembly, where he no longer sits since his appointment as minister in his father’s government. Denis Christel is also a director of the National Petroleum Company of Congo.

Through its executive director, Abraham Roch Okoko-Esseau, the Foundation has Monsignor Daniel Minzonzo, President of the Conference of Bishops of Congo, in its sphere of influence. This influence is mainly reflected in the Church’s participation in the Foundation’s vocational education program.

Regarding the Foundation’s health program, there is no quantified report or explanation of the origin of the funds.

The program director, Doctor Florent Aimé Bembé, is a military pharmacist biologist trained at the Bordeaux Naval Military Medicine School in France and officially a scientist in the medical laboratory of the Brazzaville military hospital.

Like the President of the Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso Foundation, Doctor Bembé, AET number 979, is a graduate of the Leclerc General Military Preparatory School in Brazzaville. This military camaraderie perhaps results from Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso’s trust in him within the Foundation.

Curiously, the Foundation’s Brazzaville address is also the headquarters of EDS Pharma, a wholesaler, manufacturer, and distributor of pharmaceutical products. Doctor Bembé manages this pharmaceutical company. Doctor Bembé’s activities are even more varied. He appears as honorary President of political associations, notably the dynamic of the young people of Poto-Poto in support of the path of the future (the social project of President Sassou in 2009) and Les Messagers et défenseurs de la paix au Congo, an association for the change of the 2015 constitution.

In 2016, the Foundation spent the sum of 80,000 USD on lobbying fees with the firm Squire Patton Boggs. The portfolio lobbyists were Michael Driver, Meg Gilley, and Laura Klick. Lobbyist Laura Klick had served as a legal intern for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and Meg Gilley as a legal assistant and senior personal assistant to Congressman Jack Kingston, foundation chairman of the Republican Party of Georgia, the fundraising arm of the GOP, and senior adviser and spokesperson for Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The lobbyists’ actions are not detailed. Their contract was to advocate for the Foundation and its President’s activities to members of the US Congress and organizations like NDI.

In 2017, at the invitation of Global Health Catalyst, a structure where Constituency for Africa leader Melvin P. Foote sits, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso’s Foundation participated in the World Health Summit in Boston. Dr Aimé Bembé led the delegation.

Showing Chevron as a partner of his Constituency for Africa think tank, Melvin P. Foote was, from the end of 2016, the principal conductor of the adventures of Kiki, the oilman in America.

Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso is the subject of a judicial investigation in France in the context of the affair of ill-gotten goods. 

Several reports from Global Witness, in particular, have revealed the mechanisms of its illicit enrichment. 

In 2021, his wife Nathalie Boumba pleaded guilty in a Florida court in the Miami penthouse case worth USD 2.8 million.

At the time of writing this report, the Foundation’s website, http://www.perspectivesavenir.ong, was out of service, and the official Facebook page had been inactive since 2021. 

Therefore, the Foundation seems to be dormant today.

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.

On March 29, 2024, according to the USA prosecution case against Nguesso regarding the confiscation of the New York Trump Tower Condo:

« 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.

Sources	2020	%
Public administration	8 075 569 561	29%
Companies	1 698 069 474	6%
NGOs & National Foundations	1 028 860 891	4%
Rest of the world	16 736 011 768	61%
Total	27 538 511 694	100%
Coronavirus in % CHE	12%

Public bids over the counter and by direct agreement seem to have been a common practice of Minister Lydia Mikolo during her time at the Ministry of Health. For example, a service provider, Natalia Sarlu, not listed in the national file of Congolese companies and whose submission file indicates having only one employee, is awarded a contract by direct agreement with the minister for 78 million FCFA. The manager, Mireille Nathalie Onani, is a veritable administrative ghost, and her company has no trace of previous activities in the health field. Another over-the-counter market allocates 490 million FCFA to the COVID-19 fund for the benefit of the Cristale pharmacy and its manager, Philippe Ludovic Ambeto. The contract concerns the supply of thermometers and anti-COVID kits. It is perhaps a coincidence that the Cristale pharmacy is at the same address as the headquarters of Asperbras Congo, 129 rue de Reims. Philippe Ludovic Ambeto has owned LUPHA laboratories for a decade and manufactures food supplements and aphrodisiacs. We are a long way from respiratory diseases and the coronavirus.

This practice of calling for tenders by direct agreement and by mutual agreement is already problematic, but when, in addition, the bidder and the beneficiary are nothing other than the minister’s husband, we enter into a complete conflict of interest. 

For four hundred and forty-four million and thirty thousand FCFA or approximately 2% of the Covid fund, the Ministry ordered a Covid geolocation application from the Israeli company Ray Zone Group, represented by Chérif Aidara, the minister’s husband. On the invoice, a 100% deposit before delivery on May 28, 2020. Of delivery or deployment, there is no trace as of March 2023. The application was never received or deployed. 

The Rayzone Group company, represented by Cherif Aidara, the minister’s husband, belongs to Bar Zakhai Hasidoff Yochai, Yaron El Rum Import and Export Ltd., I.R Intertrade Ltd with Bar Zakhai Hasidov Yochai, El Rom Yaron, Reshef as directors. Eran Baruch and Caspi Matán. Its prominent leader, Bar Zakhai Hasidov, is a former deputy commander of the IDF’s 8200 signals intelligence unit. In 2011, Matan Caspi and Eran Reshef spread Pegasus technology to a foreign country’s military, collaborating with a foreign businessman convicted of corruption, whose name is protected by an order from an Israeli court. Therefore, a cyber-surveillance company of the Israeli military-industrial complex that Minister Mikolo ordered COVID-19 tracking software.

Simply put, RayZone’s technology is a tool for locating a person or group of people on a geographic basis. The Echo software developed by the company takes advantage of the fact that when people use the Internet on their mobile phones, they leave location marks. Rayzone knows how to access this information, and the Echo software it developed knows how to connect landmarks to identify the target’s location in space or the trajectory of its movement.

This contract in 2020, as the 2021 presidential election approaches, raises even more questions about its true objectives.

The invasive nature of the software and Rayzone’s managers’ reputation do not argue in favor of respecting the confidentiality of communications and data of possible users of said COVID-19 software.

If such software has been deployed on the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, it is a fundamental breach of the State’s internal security.

«The shortages fuel a mafia-like black market in big cities, with prices exploding (15,000 FCFA [around 23 euros] on average for a box of ARVs, compared to 5,000 FCFA [around 8 euros] before free ARVs in the country). » We see corruption in public pharmacies, which supply their loved ones first or sell ARVs at prohibitive prices (100,000 FCFA per box [152 euros]) and parallel supply circuits via neighboring countries. » Prabonnaud, F. (2017, October 11). In Congo-Brazzaville, stock shortages of ARVs are a chronic problem. Sidaction.

Pami Partners appears six times in the MSP’s 2022 social expenditure schedule for costs relating to acquiring antiretrovirals (ARVs) for the benefit of the purchasing center. It is disturbing that the drug purchasing center, whose primary mission is this, delegates its supply of antiretrovirals to a company unknown in the most recent Congolese national company file. 

In 2017, an investigation by Transversal magazine reported that ARV shortages were chronic and generated a black market at the expense of people living with HIV.

The disruptions result from «poor governance and non-prioritization of the allocation of national budgets towards the rational purchase of medicines.» 

In the summer of 2017, again, according to the Magazine Transversal investigation, the government agreed to release funds and ordered around 500 million FCFA (760,000 euros) of ARVs from the IDA foundation. In 2018, the percentage of treatment sites out of stock of one or more antiretroviral drugs needed was 95.9%, according to the UNAIDS Country Report.

Pami Partners is a company incorporated under Swiss law, previously known until March 1, 2022, under the name Serenity Cosmetics Suisse SA. This company managed the SPA and distributed cosmetic products in Brazzaville. It belongs to Judicaelle Prudence Mouandinga Okemba Darboux, the daughter of the Congolese secret services boss and President Sassou Nguesso’s nephew, Admiral Jean-Dominique Okemba. In the Assets Abound report, we traced a real estate acquisition by Judicaelle Okemba in Dubai. The daughter of the powerful boss of the secret services is also on the board of directors of the South African telecommunications company TELEO, alongside prestigious names like Cheikh Modibo Diarra, an American-Malian who retired from NASA.

In Brazzaville, Pami Partners is domiciled at 29 bis rue Mbochis in Brazzaville, an address shared with a lawyer, Maître Awola Nestor. Pami Partner organized «an African summit on finance, banking and digitalization» on February 25 and 26, 2024. We are very far from supplying ARVs.

 Judicaelle also manages at 108 Rue de la Musique Tambourinée, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, the company SERENITY CONGO SARLU, which, according to the Dun & Bradstreet website, has a turnover of $1.61 million. Jean-Dominique Okemba, Judicaelle’s father, is also chairman of the board of directors of the main local bank, BGFI CONGO.

Judicaëlle Okemba presented her company, Serenity Spa and Cosmetic Line – Serenity Cosmetics, during a lobbying evening organized by Courville Consultants LLC on May 27, 2016, in Washington. The Congolese embassy in Washington financed this evening for a total amount of 28,000 USD. Judicaëlle Okemba addressed diplomats in the American capital.

At the same period, the regime has been bombing the Pool region since April 2016 and sequestering presidential election candidate Jean Marie Michel Mokoko.

It should be noted that Jesse Jackson and the Ambassador of Benin, Omar Arouna, were present at this gala.

The links between Reverend Jackson and the Republic of Congo are old and deep.

In 1986, when President Reagan refused to receive President Sassou Nguesso, it was Jesse Jackson, his regular visitor to the Willard Hotel, who took offense via his contacts in the American press in terms with anti-Semitic overtones:

Jesse Jackson wonders if anyone would treat an Israeli leader this way. The answer is no: if only because it would offend American Jews.

For Jesse Jackson, Denis Sassou Nguesso, ignored by the «white press,» was a sponsor and supporter of the black cause, more precisely of his cause.

In 2021, the Reverend receives a visit from Brice Dimitri Bayendissa, PCT MP and campaign director of President Sassou Nguesso.

We have identified two Pami Partners employees, Christelle Nanda and Christelle Jomotia. Perhaps they are the same person. These employees are also sales representatives of another structure that allegedly belongs to the Okemba clan, the company Le Trefle SA.

This real estate company markets luxury apartments in the Moabi Tower, a high-end R+10 residential building in the heart of Brazzaville. The tower offers 28 apartments, including two penthouses.

On the issue of ARVs, there is no call for tenders or contracts awarded over the counter.

However, the annual report of the General Directorate of Public Procurement Control for 2022 mentions the award of contracts to Pami Partner for a total amount of 2,880,203,909 FCFA, or approximately 4,757,411 euros. In comparison, the annual budget of the Brazzaville University Hospital is five hundred million FCFA.

The contract between Pami Partner and the Ministry of Health cannot be found.

The three contracts awarded to Pami Partners for purchasing imaging equipment were not completed. 

According to figures from the general directorate of public procurement control and the PWYP Congo 2020-2022 report on the health system, the disbursement rate is 55.10% of the budget of five hundred million FCFA for each contract.

The PWYP Congo 2020-2022 report on the health system is also completely silent on executing the provision of ARVs.

We find little or nothing about these companies. Although cited as beneficiaries of a contract with the MSP awaiting payment in 2022, they are almost absent from the most recent file in the National Directory of Congolese Companies. Their names are M2R-COMPANY MC, KOUMOU CONSTRUCTION KC SARLU, BD. COM SARL, MAISON AUBAINE M.A S.A.R.L.U, Natalia Sarlu, Solution Juste Confort, Pierre Anne Construction, etc. In most cases, contracts or calls for tenders are not recorded.

On September 20, 2021, Le Patriote, a newspaper known for its proximity to the regime in place, indicated that Solution Juste Confort, led by Juste Simplice Okabé, provided the MSP with medical-technical equipment for an amount of 80 million FCFA. This equipment included examination tables, complete hospital beds, delivery beds with accessories, metal baby scales, medical carts, mixed binocular microscopes, etc. According to the reception committee members, equipment was delivered more than five years late and was not always compliant. No sanction, penalties, or withdrawal from the market due to late, incomplete, or non-compliant delivery; the MSP does not defend itself against a visibly failing operator. Is it because of his relationship with former minister Saturnin Okabé? In the list of markets approved in 2022, M2R-Company and Pierre-Anne Construction, respectively, represent more than one billion FCFA in the budget of the Ministry of Health.

The Natalia Sarlu company is the only case where Minister Lydia Mikolo signed a call for tenders for seventy-eight million FCFA from the Covid Fund. 

Apart from this call for tenders by direct agreement, there is no trace of this company, nothing in the national company file, nothing in the Official Journal, and nothing about its manager, Nathalie Mireille Onani. Natalia Sarlu’s address on rue Moukoukoulou corresponds to a private home guarded by gendarmes. This address would be the home of a regime official whom we have not been able to identify formally.

We only know that Natalia Sarlu was created in 2011 in Brazzaville. The company is headquartered at 2006 rue Moukoukoulou, Moungali, Brazzaville. Its director, Natalie Mireille Onani, was born in 1985 in BOUNDJI. The company officially has only one employee specializing in construction or structural work. We are far from the hospital beds, medical mattresses, and serum feet supply.

The PWYP Congo 2020-2022 report on the health system mentions the execution in April 2021 for an amount of two hundred and fifty million FCFA of an order from the Blood Transfusion Center by the supplier WAGENIA.

The award decision for this company is unavailable, and its website does not mention any names of directors. Wagenia is headed by Camille (or Kamil?) Sarkis, according to a footnote in the International Finance Corporation’s The Business of Health in Africa report. This note is confirmed by the French commercial register, which lists in Puteaux the Wagenia company managed by Camille Sarkis of Lebanese nationality with residence in Kinshasa, avenue de Wagenia.

Camille Sarkis is believed to be the son of Sarkis Garabet Soghanalian, also known as Serge Soghanalian. The latter was one of the most important arms dealers of contemporary times.

Serge Soghanalian deliveries, in collaboration with those of Victor Bout via Kinshasa and Gabon, played a decisive role in the military victory of the Cobras militias of Sassou Nguesso during the civil war of 1997.

The company uses the services of BYBLOS BANK EUROPE SA in Brussels, where the arms dealer has offices. Dirk Vermeiren, senior manager of global logistics at the Baxter laboratory — infamous for the contaminated blood affair —sits on the board of directors of this bank.

Without a receipt document and images, we cannot say whether the April 2021 delivery in the middle of the presidential election by WAGENIA is medical equipment or weapons in anticipation of possible unrest.

A former general manager of a mineral water company, a subsidiary of an Algerian conglomerate, statutes, and a ghost manager: As soon as we approach the Congolese pharmaceutical sector, we are faced with an opacity worthy of the forest virgin.

According to regulations, the private drug distribution network is organized into two levels: wholesale distributors and retailers.

The August 2018 Health Sector Review report lists seven (7) wholesale distributors: SEP (Equatorial Pharmaceutical Company), LABOREX, UBIPHARM-CONGO, PHARMACREDIT, ZENUFA, EDS PHARMA and ROFFE PHARMA. The report does not specify who runs its companies or who owns them.

Even more opaque, they are all absent from the latest national file of Congolese companies. To this list of seven wholesale distributors, we must add at least one company, the Biocare laboratory run by a «ghost,» Jacques Bandelia. This name only appears once in an article in the Brazzaville dispatches—no photo of this leader, no mention in the Official Journal, nothing anywhere.

The Biocare laboratory produces massive solutions, particularly isotonic and saline glucose serums. It is the only company that supplies the country since the closure of LAPHARCO, previously LAPCO (Congo Pharmaceutical Laboratory).

Our investigation also questions the Congolese aspect of the contaminated blood affair, therefore the proliferation of AIDS in the Republic of Congo, and the possible participation of dispatchers in this scandal, as we will see later.

In 2018, base hospitals had 48% availability of medicines. Recurring shortages benefit an informal sector known as street pharmacy. Even the National Blood Transfusion Center is not immune to reagent shortages, which makes controlling and supplying blood products impossible.

According to a technical study by the World Bank on the private pharmaceutical sector, its turnover was more than 42 billion FCFA in 2012.

In this country where parasitosis is endemic and diarrhea is the third cause of infant mortality, the two reference dewormers, Mebendazole and metronidazole, are sold at a price more than 10 times higher than the international reference price.

The 2007 technical report on the price of medicines by the WHO and the Ministry drives home the point. The median price of innovative medicines in the private sector is 33.99 times higher than the international reference price, with a maximum of 106.95 times for Mebendazole.

Our study shows that the medicine market in the Republic of Congo is a monopoly of CFAO through its subsidiaries.

However, it should be noted that there are wholesale distributors not listed in the Ministry’s Health Account reports. These wholesale manufacturers mainly distribute products made in India.

Our investigation could not determine whether he practices legally in the Republic of Congo.

Finally, there is the eternal question of street and counterfeit drugs. In Mouyondzi, local actors told us that all the street drug sellers were untouchable because they were supporters of Lydia Mikolo, the former Minister of Health.

According to the 2022 report from the French Treasury on trade with Congo, «instruments and devices for medicine» represent the second largest item of imports from Congo (6.2%), followed by «medicines» (2.4%). In 2022, imports to Congo amounted to 1,696.9 billion, also increasing (+ 50%), compared to 1,132.9 billion FCFA in 2021.

As the financial data for the entire pharmaceutical sector is not documented, it is impossible to say its turnover in 2024 and even less who benefits from this windfall.

Due to the CFAO monopoly, princeps and generic drugs are expensive in Congo. Prices can be up to five or even nine times the purchase price. In 2007, according to the technical report of the Ministry of Health on the price of medicines, treating a gastric ulcer for one month with ranitidine tablets required 25.1 days of salary for the originator and 6.7 days for the generic equivalent.

Therefore, the Congolese adopted three main strategies: intermittent compliance, recourse to street medicine, and neotraditional/confessional medicine.

• The first strategy involves changing your prescription and not taking the full treatment but only what you can afford.

• The second is to look for equivalents on the street at the risk of ingesting counterfeit and damaged products because they are poorly stored.

• The third involves turning to so-called traditional medicine that is unregulated and where charlatans and evangelical religious people are rampant.

For forty years, sick, the Congolese citizen has been reduced to turning to prayer with the laying on of hands as treatment while waiting for better days.

It is a complex entity. Laborex or CFAO HealthCare? It is directed by Lisse Dossot. An old Congo company register, and a LinkedIn profile instead identify NDOYE MOUSTAPHA as general director and Didier TSOMAMBET as deputy general director of Laborex Congo.

The Laborex website allows you to see things a little more clearly. Created in 1985, Laborex collaborates with the Eurapharma group, which is the health division of the CFAO group and has more than 150 Congolese pharmacists as shareholders. Who are its 150 pharmacists? Who owns Eurapharma? 

The director of Laborex appeared in 1957 in the official Congolese journal as a customs expert for materials specific to pharmacy alongside the director of CFAO. He was again confirmed in this role in 1958 and 1959 alongside Mr. Mavré, a pharmacist in Brazzaville. 

The Laborex establishments cannot, therefore, have been created in 1985 and have, in 1958 and 1959, performed the role of customs expert on behalf of the Republic of Congo within the French Union. This omission on the Laborex site is perhaps intended to hide the pharmaceutical distributor’s colonial past. 

It is at this level that the mesh becomes more complex. Eurapharma, the leader in the sale of medicines in Africa with 1.7 billion euros in turnover in 2022, heir to the Laborex establishments in French Equatorial and West Africa, has its head office at the same address, 8 Av. Paul Delorme, 76120 Le Grand-Quevilly, France, that CFAO Healthcare and a cascade of companies involved in particular in the distribution of medicines to French overseas territories.

Jean-Marc Leccia, the President of Europharma and CEO of CFAO Healthcare is also the beneficiary of a structure, EURAPHARMA CONSULTING SERVICES, with a turnover of more than one million euros. 

Jean-Marc Leccia is affiliated with the IFPW foundation and is the regional director for Europe of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers, Inc. in the United States.

The IFPW Foundation is proud to support the Fight the Fakes Alliance, an initiative launched and chaired by the Brazzaville Foundation of Jean-Yves Ollivier, advisor and arms dealer to President Sassou Nguesso.

Jean-Marc Leccia began his professional career at Baxter laboratories, overseeing exports to the Africa-Maghreb zone. Then, he joined Eurapharma in 1991, where he was in charge of promotion activities. 

In a legal announcement published in the Semaine Africaine Newspaper of September 23, 2023, it is mentioned that Laborex Congo is a limited company under Congolese law, with a board of directors and a capital of 1,076,740,000 FCFA, or 1,642,180 euros. The companies SORAPHARMA, SECA (European Cooperation and Assistance Company), and FORAPHARMA are members of the board of directors of Laborex Congo and all emanations of CFAO Healthcare. Jean-Marc Leccia is, therefore, de facto President of the board of directors of Laborex Congo.

In 2023, the companies SORAPHARMA, SECA, and FORAPHARMA had a turnover of 222 million euros, 0 euros, and 0 euros, respectively.

The SECA and FORAPHARMA companies appear like empty shells, each with zero employees and zero turnover.

On the other hand, the company CONTINENTAL PHARMACEUTIQUE, at the same address as CFAO Healthcare, with Jean-Marc Leccia and Alex Puech as beneficiaries and shareholders, had a turnover of 602 million euros in 2023. The company EPDis France, too, at the same address as CFAO Healthcare, chaired and managed by Jean-Marc Leccia, had a turnover of 369 million euros.

Everything points to the conclusion that Mr. Jean-Marc Leccia is the heir to the colonial monopoly of Laborex establishments in the French-speaking African region. It is, with SORAPHARMA and CONTINENTAL PHARMACEUTIQUE and EPDis France, the main beneficiary of the drug market in Africa. It seems that Jean-Marc Leccia is behind one of the holders of Leccia International Inc., an entity in the BVI represented by Union Privée Bancaire du Luxembourg, but we have not been able to confirm this.

However, the private banking union of Luxembourg also represented BAXTER TRADING LTD., the BVI entity of Jean-Marc Leccia’s first employer.

BAXTER laboratories were accused and convicted in France of having knowingly sold mainly between 1978 and 1985 blood products contaminated with the AIDS virus, even though processes to decontaminate these products existed.

Considering the even greater interpenetration between pharmaceutical distribution in France and French-speaking Africa, there is no reason to believe that this distribution of contaminated blood products was limited to France.

From 1988 in Africa, Jean-Marc Leccia’s professional success also coincided with the outbreak of the HIV pandemic in French-speaking Africa.

On April 24, 2024, the English newspaper The Telegraph reported in an article titled «Doctors’ bribed to use infected blood products’» that Baxter in the United Kingdom was bribing doctors to use infected blood, leading to some patients becoming infected with HIV and hepatitis C. These blood products are also used to treat symptoms of sickle cell disease, a genetic disease that primarily affects black populations.

In October 1985, France banned the distribution of unheated products for hemophiliacs to avoid contamination. However, the Mérieux Institute nationalized in 1981 and, therefore, a French public establishment, expanded abroad, so much so that in February 1986, the laboratory continued to sell its products in other countries.

According to our research, Laborex Congo, created in 1985, would have been used to dispose of excess unheated and potentially contaminated blood from France, particularly from the Mérieux laboratory. Anne-Marie Casteret supports this hypothesis of export to Africa in her book L’Affaire du sang where she reports the testimony of former collaborators of the sale of stocks of unheated blood to Africa and Greece by Mérieux laboratories.

The Mérieux Institute «was aware, from April 1985 at the latest, of the high risks of contamination inherent in the absence of heating of the product». 

Alain Mérieux appears to be a regular supporter of President Sassou Nguesso. For example, in 2016, in the midst of the post-electoral crisis, he went to Brazzaville to inaugurate the Christophe Mérieux Center for Research on Infectious Diseases.

In 1989, Congo, Laborex’s stronghold, was the African country most affected by HIV with 62.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants; a hidden contaminated blood scandal?

One of the entry points for AIDS in the Republic of Congo seems to be France via exports from serious laboratories distributed by Laborex Congo, as confirmed by an article in Le Parisien from November 2002:

«In 1985, when those responsible for blood transfusion had just put an end to the distribution in France of unheated blood products, which were potentially contaminated by the AIDS virus, the Mérieux Institute continued to export its risky batches to dozens of poor countries, including Botswana, Guinea, Saudi Arabia, and Congo… Hundreds of hemophiliacs in these countries received unheated and untested vials.» – Fleury, E. (2002, November 4). The contaminated blood scandal rebounds abroad. The Parisian.

In 1985, Denis Sassou Nguesso was President of the Republic since 1979, and the Minister of Health was Professor Christophe Bouramoue, a former member of the University of Montpellier.

According to Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, Jacques Bandelia manages the company. However, it was impossible to find information about the manager of the only pharmaceutical factory operating in the Republic of Congo.

What we know is that the factory is located in the Kintélé village, Djiri, at the same address as the Okiessi mineral water packaging factory, owned by NG ENTREPRISE, the company of the President’s daughter, Claudia Sassou Nguesso, directed by Médard Limbouazeni.

Pascal Daumain, the former general director from 2009 to 2018, was also the treasurer of the Groupement des boteilleurs du Congo. At this stage of our investigations, it is impossible to confirm that the Biocare laboratory occupies the same premises as the NG Entreprise water plant. However, an order for a dosing station by the French company Ekope and implemented by Biocare is of concern.

Ekope is managed by two French people, Abdelkader Khadir and Cyriaque Clairon. It turns out that the latter, Cyriaque Clairon, describes himself as «former general manager of a mineral water company in Congo Brazzaville» without specifying the company’s name.

The tangle of companies involving the two partners is complex. According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Otman BOUDINA directed the laboratory from 2012 to 2014.

The current director of financial and accounting affairs at Biocare, Mr. Guy Biansoumba, is also the head of the finance department of COGEMO clinic, a health establishment headed by Dr. Philippe BANDZOUZI, a general practitioner at APHP Kremlin-Bicêtre in France.

The Laboratoire Biocare brand exists as a subsidiary of the BIOCARE Group, an Algerian pharmaceutical company created by Drs Mohammed Redha HABBES and Samira HABBES.

Would the Biocare laboratory be part of Claudia Sassou Nguesso’s NG Entreprise conglomerate?

Hyacinthe Ingani is certainly not just a pharmacist. This former student of the pharmacy institute of the Free University of Brussels is, above all, a deputy and member of the central committee of the PCT and the brother of Minister Inès INGANI.

Hyacinthe Ingani headed the Council of the Order of Pharmacists for 14 years, from 2004 to 2018. He was replaced in this position by Jean-Charles-Claude ONGOLI. A long reign that is, in reality, prolonged by the control he maintains over UBIPHARM-CONGO and a cascade of companies linked to this network.

According to Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, UBIPHARM has existed in Congo since 1993. A legal insertion filed among the minutes of Maître Aude Jasmine ONGOLY IKORA in the African Week of August 2023 specifies that UBIPHARM CONGO is a multi-personal limited company with capital of two billion two hundred and eighty million FCFA.

No entry in the official journal confirms the registration of the UBIPHARM CONGO in 1993.

It is also impossible to know the shareholding and the members of the board of directors—an opacity that raises questions about the possible direct involvement of the presidential family.

The general director of UbiPharm Congo is David Appolinaire BEMBA, but its chairman of the board of directors is Hyacinthe INGANI.

The UBIPHARM CONGO network completely infiltrates the national order of Congolese pharmacists. The successors, Jean Charles Claude ONGOLI and Jagger MPANDZO are all members and directors of UBIPHARM. Philippe Ludovic Ambeto, from the LUPHA laboratory and the Cristale pharmacy, is a member of UbiPharm.

UBIPHARM CONGO is a director of UBIPHARM — turnover of 305,000 euros in 2021 —, DII DEVELOPPEMENT INFORMATIQUE INTERNATIONAL (DII SA) — turnover of 3.25 million euros in 2021 — and GESCA — turnover of 3.65 million euros in 2021, three French companies. 

UBIPHARM Congo reported 371,000 euros in turnover, according to the 2022 social accounts of the UBIPHARM group.

All the African and Malagasy companies in the group buy their goods from the company PLANETPHARMA — turnover of 778 million euros in 2022 — managed by Gerard Mangoua and Hervé, Raymond, Kohgba Guessennd — of which Hyacinthe INGANI is one of the directors.

PHARMAFINANCE SA is the result of the alliance of 161 Ivorian private pharmacists, previously shareholders of LABOREX Côte d’Ivoire, who decided in 1990 to take charge of supplying the private medicine market in Côte d’Ivoire according to what you can read on their website.

Nicole Evelyne Mavré-Gigault, 73 years old in 2024, chose the sun of Sugarland, Texas, USA, for her old age. In her property worth nearly a million USD, the Congolese of French origin, whose birth in January 1951 was announced by telegram in the columns of Le Figaro, seems far from family affairs. However, she officially continues to exercise mandates over the family companies and the inheritance of her father, Robert-Léon Mavré-Gigault, and her mother, Simone Patard, daughter of Mr. Patard, an industrialist in Savigny.

Robert-Léon Mavré-Gigault (1921-2000) and Simone Patard were French pharmacists and settlers.

In 1948, they settled in Middle Congo, a colony in French Equatorial Africa, where they are said to have opened the country’s first pharmacy.

The AEF archives mention a pharmacy deposit by Mr. Touzelet Gilbert, manager of the French West African Company (CFAO) in Dolisie on February 13, 1948, and the qualification of Mr. Dhenain François to open a pharmacy in Pointe-Noire, Middle Congo, on March 4, 1948. In 1950, Simone Patard Mavré-Gigault sold her pharmacy located at 138 Boulevard Grenelle in Paris 15th to Madame Gaillard Suzanne, wife Joubert Jean, for an unspecified amount. 

On July 11, 1953, the Mavré family and Myriam Mollard née Le Bel, a pharmacist in Pointe-Noire, created the Société Equatoriale Pharmaceutique (SEP) in Brazzaville, a wholesale distributor with a capital of 600,000 FCFA at the time still the single FCFA with a value of 1 FCFA = 2 French francs, or around three million euros in 2023. We do not know the subscribers’ names who fully paid up the 600 cash shares issued. 

Ms. Myriam Mollard was appointed President and General Director at the end of the general meeting.

In the colonial society of Middle Congo, Mr. Robert Mavré is a minor notable. In 1957, he was the titular representative of pharmacists. In 1958 and 1959, expert on colonial customs on pharmaceutical products. In 1962, two years after independence, Mavré Robert, first vice-president of the Lions Club, was elevated to the rank of knight of the Congolese order of merit by President Fulbert Youlou alongside Babinet (Michel), consulting insurer, «Lions Club» Brazzaville; Baujet (René), director of the Central Bank, member of the «Lions Club» office in Brazzaville; Normand (Jean-Charles), architect, vice-president of the «Lions Club» in Brazzaville and Trottier (André-René), director of the National Bank for Commerce and Industry in Brazzaville, member of the «Lions Club» office.

On March 10, 1965, Order No. 1011 on the pharmacy authorization granted in 1956 to Mr. Mavré Robert was validated by the revolutionary regime of President Massamba Débat. Pascal Lissouba is prime minister, and Simon Gokana, [father of Denis Auguste Marie Gokana, boss of AOGC and hydrocarbons advisor to Denis Sassou Nguesso], minister of public health, population, and social affairs. There is no trace of pharmacy authorization for Mr. Mavré in the official journals of the AEF for the year 1956. In May 1966, at the study of Maître Gnali-Gomes Marcel-Roger [father of the infamous lawyer Vincent Gomes], notary Mr. Mavré sold for an unknown amount and to an unknown buyer [perhaps the S.E.P] the pharmacy Mavré Morelle Rigal and Mavré Pharmaciens. The colonists have taken root.

Between 1983 and 1996, the Mavré family and its associates created a network of companies in Congo, France, and Switzerland. Essentially, this involved acquiring hotel franchises and SCIs and consolidating them into a holding company in Switzerland. This particular structure of the Mavré Empire is characteristic of financial arrangements for repatriation and money laundering. 

However, without access to financial and banking records, we cannot confirm that this is the case here.

What we do know, however, is that in France, the companies ASOGI France and Holsi France have a turnover of at least zero euros, respectively, for the last four financial years. ASOGI France has equity of three million euros and HOLSI of two million euros. The Holsi holding is the oldest company, created in 1996 in Switzerland, and the majority shareholder of Holsi France. 

Through a tangle of partners and companies, Holsi France manages the French assets of the Mavré family, including the Hôtel de Gerland in Lyon, SCI Brumi at the same address as the Hôtel Gerland in Lyon, and DAMALINE – IBIS close to Meaux –. Nicole Mavré-Gigault owns SCIP SIROCO in Brazzaville, a shareholder in France of SCI Brumi.

246 rue Marcel Mérieux, 69007 LYON, you can’t make it up, is the address of SCI Brumi and the Hôtel de Gerland — turnover of nine hundred thousand and sixty-nine euros in 2020 —, the main assets of the Mavré. Marcel Mérieux is the name of the father of Alain Mérieux, the founder of Laboratoires Mérieux, infamous for the contaminated blood affair. 

The chronology of company creations between 1983 and 1996 fits perfectly into this period. The main wholesale distributor in Congo-Brazzaville, the Equatorial Pharmaceutical Company SEP, would have participated in the sale of French blood stocks in Africa, as we hypothesize with Laborex.

As early as 1983, Professor Luc Montagnier, Professors Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, and Jean-Claude Chermann identified the infectious agent and the contamination by blood. After the delisting decision by Minister Laurent Fabius in 1985, blood products from Mérieux laboratories, almost unsaleable in France, generated an immense profit in Congo. 

The Mavré would have laundered this profit through investments in real estate via SCIs and the hotel industry. 

In 1996, just after the Mitterrand-Chirac alternation, the holding company was created in Switzerland to protect millions from injunctions for compensation from potential victims. The compensation fund for French victims and their families was estimated at 17 billion francs or 2.5 billion euros.

Around 2018, the head pharmacist of the Mavré-SEP pharmacy, the late Alex Ramel, was also the plenipotentiary ambassador of the Order of Malta in the Republic of Congo. His predecessor, Philippe d’Alverny, husband of Christiane Chodron de Courcel, cousin of Madame Bernadette Chirac, is a director of the company GROUPEMENT FORESTIER DE CONTRÔLE and of the SCI DE L’INSTITUT DE LA MAISON BOURBON. His successor, Henri Nsika, is a French teacher at Durham Public Schools, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA.

Malta is a financial hub for Congolese oil companies. 

In the Russo-Congolese Gunvor scandal, it was via Malta that Asperbras paid $17.05 million in bribes to Maxime Gandzion, son of Prosper Gandzion, the minister of education in the Youlou government who decorated Robert Mavré in 1957.

The Gandzions own several properties in Miami, USA with an estimated total value of over 3 million USD. They own 1000 BRICKELL PLZ 4703 Miami, FL, worth $552,500.00, and 1100 S MIAMI AVE 2007, MIAMI, FL, worth $583,500. 1051 Northeast 89th Street Miami, FL 33138, was purchased for $100 in 2018 from the «Gandzion Family Office,» OMBIMA LLC, then resold for $2,150,000 to J & L Land Investments LLC.

What role did the officer and then ambassador of the Order of Malta, leader of the SEP, Alex Michel Ramel, play in allowing Gandzion to receive the millions of Asperbras?

Who owns the company to which the Gandzions sold the Florida property of the Family Office?

Questions are currently unanswered.

 

Infant and maternal mortality rates are significant indicators of a population’s overall health and health systems’ effectiveness. In the Republic of Congo, these statistics mark the State of health disaster in which the country is plunged.

Rural maternity wards without beds and gutted roofs from which rainwater falls on the faces of women who give birth on the ground.

Our field investigations in some rural areas in the north and south of the country were shocking, given the advanced degree of deterioration of integrated health centers.
There is this testimony of a woman who had a miscarriage when the paramedic refused to transport her to the nearest hospital due to lack of money. Evacuations are the patients’ responsibility, with payment of a driver incentive bonus of between 60,000 and 90,000 FCFA.

These agents of a health center without pay for months and are sinking into alcoholism. Everywhere, the landscape of total health abandonment emerges.

Regarding infrastructure, the Congolese health system is in disarray despite the colossal investments devoted to creating new hospitals since 2014. 

We have shown how this ambitious health-for-all project was, in fact, nothing more than political stunt and a bottomless pit for public finances for the benefit of crooked actors and the presidential family.

Finally, the supply of medicines is in the hands of a cartel chaired since 1948 by a colonial concessionary company, CFAO, the French West African Company.

Essential medicines for child survival are sold at up to 10 times the international reference price.

The health budget is mainly used to enrich the military-political-administrative class and for medical evacuations of its members to Europe, Turkey, Morocco, South Africa, or India.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

• Withdraw the 12 hospitals project from Asperbras and open a judicial investigation and a commission of inquiry
  
• Withdraw the contracts awarded over the counter to phantom entrepreneurs and those with conflicts of interest, such as Pami Partners and Rayzone Group
  
• Open a judicial investigation into the Congo Brazzaville part of the contaminated blood affair against historical wholesale distributors
  
• Dismantle the CFAO Healthcare (Ubipharm, Laborex) monopoly on the distribution of medicines and gradually replace it with a periodically renewable licensing system based on objective criteria
  
• Establish a social basket of essential medicines, including dewormers and antimalarials, as a priority
  
• Operationalize the health district management committees with the presence of user representatives
  
• Strengthen the body of inspectors of the Ministry of Health to fight against the resale of donations, charlatanism, sectarian abuses in the field of health, and all illegal practices of medicine
  
• Establish an obligation to publish social and financial accounts and the minutes of the general meetings of national foundations annually

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