Democratic Republic of Congo President Fèlix Tshisekedi and government have been implicated in a financial scandal involving as much as US$324 million of public funds that were misappropriated.
The government claim to have used the funds in the organizing of the 2023 Francophone Games hosted in Kinshasa between July and August.
The budget for the hosting of the Francophone Games had been initially set at an estimated US$48 million but government through Finance Minister Nicolas Kazadi has shockingly revealed that the budget increased to a mind-boggling US$324 million.
Kazadi claims the operations budget for the Games had escalated from just US$12 million to US$78 million while the investment expenditure went from US$36 million to a whooping US$246 million.
The revealations by Kazadi have not been well received by the public with fingers pointed at the government and its possible involvement in the scandal of the misappropriation of public funds.
President Tshisekedi has also not been left out with his long-term passion to realize the vision of hosting the Games now seen as a master plan to plunder public funds.
Political leaders in the DR Congo are now calling for the government to give an account of how the funds were utilized and institution of investigations to establish the truth about the scandal.
