Agree. I’d say this interview was with Serge of course.
DRC: Cominière, Dathomir, Zijin,AVZ Minerals, Dathcom Mining:What is happening concretely?La Rédaction July 12, 2022 In an interview conducted by the editorial staff of MNM with the law firm Momentum, the AVZ authorities gave answers to understand the reasons for the agitation and glutton appetite around Manono lithium since the validation of the Final Feasibility Study by AVZ Minerals.Below is the full interview.MNM: Is the beginning of the agreements between Dathomir and Cominière in 2017? Was it AVZ who created Dathomir and drafted the Joint Venture contract according to the statements of the Cominière company to certain civil society activists and the media?Cabinet Momentum: AVZ says that this is an erroneous allegation about the period of the agreements. It was on September 23, 2016 that Dathomir and Cominière signed "Preliminary Agreement" and that according to "Initial Exploration JVA" signed on October 17, 2016, Cominière had 70% and Dathomir had 30% of the Joint Venture. At that time, Dathomir had already been created without the presence of AVZ Minerals and the JV already existed before its entry. AVZ entered by buying 60% of Dathomir's shares in "Binding Ter, Sheet" giving AVZ 60%, Dathomir remaining with 10% and Cominiere 30%.This agreement also involved a payment of USD 6 Million Doorsteps and the financing of the Joint Venture company until the presentation of the DFS. So, AVZ had found Dathcom and JV and only joined it through the Binding Term Sheet.MNM: Didn't AVZ have the financial capacity to carry out this Manono project? Hadn't the CAMI and the Mines Directorate verified AVZ's financial capacity and ignored the Cominière's complaints?Cabinet Momentum: Education in the Mining Code and practices in the mining industry informs anyone that proof of financial capacity is one of the substantial conditions for being issued a Research Permit (PR) in the Democratic Republic of Congo and this necessarily goes through banks. The Certificate of Financial Capacity exists and was established according to the rules of the art contrary to what is said in several political fairs and a non-specialized press.MNM: Cominière has never received payment of "no door" or any sum of money from AVZ Minerals Ltd?Cabinet Momentum: AVZ confirms that it has the evidence that will be made available demonstrating and proving that Cominière had indeed received the payment of the "step of door" and that the reason why this State Portfolio company will continue to deny it is that the amounts obtained as payments have never been given to the Treasury.MNM: Cominière accuses AVZ Minerals Ltd of taking the project hostage in that it conducted the research without associating it from beginning to end, of not actually carrying out research and therefore Cominière learned of the existence of the Feasibility Study like everyone else through the press.Cabinet Momentum: AVZ claims not to have taken the project hostage and insists that contrary to defamatory and slanderousallegations, Cominière was indeed represented at all meetings and that there was even evidence and received tokens of presence of representatives of the state enterprise at meetings of the Board of Directors including Extraordinary General Meetings/Ordinary General Meetings. The Feasibility Study was transmitted on August 3, 2020 and the Final Feasibility Study could not be filed until May 4, 2021, more than ten months later, having cost several tens of millions of US dollars that Dathomir or other partner dared to invest in hard rock research. The Technical Director and the Cominière Management Committee had several meetings for which emails between the parties exist indicating that they had been aware. It should be recalled that the "Binding Term Sheet" and the JV contract both indicate that "AVZ had to finance the Joint Venture until the presentation of the DFS (Definitive Feasibility Study)" is the Final Feasibility Study. So, under the terms of the contract, AVZ was to present the DFS to Dathcom and not the Cominière.MNM: Would Cominière have lent 5% of the shares (at the time of Dathcom Mining SAS) to Dathomir to allow him to raise the necessary funds for the project?Answer: The results of the IGF (General Inspectorate of Finance) survey of April 2022 cleared AVZ and condemned Cominière's management team. The said report of the IGF, a state service linked to the Presidency of the Republic, found that there had been a perfect and irrevocable transfer between the parties concerned and that there had never been a loan of shares. The agreements between the parties were irrevocable.MNM: Cominière claims that the Congolese state earns many payments by Zijin of more than US$33 million. This was the first time she received such a sum.Cabinet Momentum: AVZ clarifies that there was first a payment of US$5 million and the rest was paid afterwards. AVZ is obliged to reveal that it has made a better offer of more than US$100 million, the entry of the Congolese State to the Australian Stock Exchange, the creation of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Tanganyika and the Development of world-class infrastructure through a "Collaboration Convention" that will allow the rehabilitation of the airport, roads and many other infrastructure in addition to the value chain.MNM: Cominière informs, through unconventional channels, that it would have been approached by MMCS to find an amicable solution instead of a lengthy Arbitration procedure, and reveals that it has sold 5% of shares in Dathcom Mining to this company.Cabinet Momentum: AVZ says it is scandalized to learn again, through the channels outside its Board of Directors and its General Assembly, that Cominière has made a suspicious transfer of 5% to MMCS in arrangement of the ongoing case in International Arbitration. AVZ reserves the right to react to such information but at the same time it is surprised that it cannot worry the Congolese Government, the media and Ongs, following Cominière's admission of the mismanagement of the Management Committee led by Athanase Mwamba, since the death of Ngoyi Mutahile, who is already severely criminalized by the IGF Indeed, the said report accuses of the sale of the heritage of the Congolese State, La Cominière, especially its current Management Committee, which is involved in the undervaluation through several Joint Ventures.MNM: Cominière claims that AVZ Minerals runs Dathcom Mining with dictatorship and that there is no Cominière representative in the company.Cabinet Momentum: AVZ asks Cominière to tell national andinternational opinion what Messrs. Bupe, Jean Yves (also known as the son-in-law of Acting Director General Athanase Mwamba Misao), Acting Director General Athanase Mwamba and Pascal Nkanga who represents Dathomir do in Dathcom meetings with AVZ Evidence exists on minutes of meetings whose signatures attesting to their presence unless it is ghosts who represent Cominière at Dathcom meetings.MNM: Cominière accuses AVZ Minerals of reducing it to 5% of shares in Dathcom and that the Manono deposit is sold out.Cabinet Momentum: AVZ says it does not have a magical power to push the Acting Chief Executive Officer, Athanase Mwamba, and the Management Committee to sell Cominière's shares to Zijin or MMCS in Dathcom. By this sale deemed illegal and irregular by the IGF report, Cominière has just set an unfortunate precedent indicating that the DRC was not right to cancel MMCS' license and makes things difficult. AVZ considers that this is an admission of guilt and reserves the right to verify whether Cominière has received the legally founded and regular Favourable opinion from the Ministry of Portfolio.MNM: Cominière asks AVZ to stop publishing online and on disallowed about its shares, especially 75%, because this is not true.Cabinet Momentum: AVZ replies that it reports the reality of the facts legally established by all the legal and regulatory texts of the DRC: to date AVZ owns 75% of shares that are totally crystallized by the fact that Jin Chen, Zijin's subsidiary, is not a shareholder of Dathcom as a shareholder because according to the statutes of this JV AVZ's right of pre-emption is an acquired and real right that legally renders null and void any action to ignore it.MNM: Should politicians and other public officials be brought tojustice because of the mismanagement of Cominière's assets through its JVs?Answer: AVZ will support any initiative of Ongs and the media or other Congolese bodies on this subject, it will feel happy to share interesting and useful information for the success of the cause.MNM: Should the Congolese Government review the Joint Venture Agreement between AVZ Minerals, Dathomir and Cominière?Cabinet Momentum: AVZ claims to have correctly fulfilled all the terms and conditions of the JV agreement and has presented to the competent authorities a final World-class Feasibility Study, which is also the reason for all the illegal and irregular conflicts, struggles and appetites of several predators and commissionaires around Manono's Dathcom mining project. The Chinese Zijin or Dathomir do not attack the content of the Final Study or even less the Dathcom mining project, but rather want to be part of it through artificially mounted disputes at the shareholding level for the control of the company. So, therefore the agreements between the parties are perfect because the JV is based on the project and the JV.The DRC must respect the laws of the country and protect the business climateThe MNM editorial team notes that if you consider several documents and testimonies on Dathcom Mining, the calamitous management of various partnerships of the Cominière by Mr. Mwamba Athanase' group, trials in Lubumbashi and Kalemie or in Paris around joint ventures including the JV UC (United Cominière), political, Chinese and business unBy FKF and MNM
