Uganda to meet DRC over $10b debt KAMPALA A delegation of six ministers has left for South Africa where they will hold talks with officials of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over a $10 billion debt Uganda owes the latter. The Attorney General, Mr Peter Nyombi, who led the group which left yesterday, said the claim by the DRC, which resulted from activities of Uganda’s army in the neighbouring country in the late 1990s, had actually shot to $23 billion. In 1999, then DRC president Laurent-Desire Kabila sued Uganda at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) sitting at The Hague, Netherlands, accusing it of plundering resources and committing crimes against humanity in the eastern part of the country. Uganda had been part of several countries that had supported Kabila’s three-year uprising that saw his forces overthrow president Mobutu Sese Seko’s government in 1997. However, after a fall-out between Kampala and Kinshasa, Kabila sued Uganda and the ICJ in 2005 granted its request of a $10b fine. Uganda insists the UPDF were deployed in the Congo to protect national security. Asked whether Uganda would honour the new $23 billion claim by DRC, Mr Nyombi said his team was still studying documents related to the case although the South Africa talks would help refine the issues. DRC sent us a new claim of $23b and I dispatched our technical team to Kinshasa to look at their evidence. We were given 7,400 documents, most of them in French. Most have been translated to English now and just over a month ago, we went to DRC and told them we were ready to talk,” said Mr Nyombi. The minister, who said Uganda had not paid any money to the DRC, added: “We have analysed the evidence they gave us and there are questions we have raised over certain claims. We would like some evidence in respect of certain claims and by the time we are done in South Africa, we will have known what should have been the correct amount payable to DRC. We have carried out a thorough analysis of the evidence presented.” Mr Nyombi pointed out that some of the DRC claims fall outside the period mentioned in the ICJ ruling, making them defective. “You see in the ruling of the ICJ, they said compensation was only payable between a certain period when Uganda was in DRC and now they are cases that are outside that period,” said the minister. He added: “The public shouldn’t worry and the team I have has done very good analysis and in any case DRC and Uganda are sister countries and we have opened a number of channels of cooperation so besides this claim, what is even more important is our relationship with DRC and we believe our brothers will be able to understand the situation. monitor.co.ug/News/National/Uganda-to-meet-DRC-over--10b-debt/-/688334/2532690/-/xknd8pz/-/index.html
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 16:53:13 +0000
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