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.
Collectif Sassoufit 