Vincent Bollore's lawyers Olivier Baratelli (R) and Celine Astolfe at
the anti-corruption police office (OCLCIFF) in Nanterre, western suburbs
of Paris, on April 25, 2018, after the detention of Billionaire French
tycoon and other associates by authorities the day before. PHOTO | AFP
Billionaire French industrialist Vincent Bollore was brought
before investigating magistrates Wednesday to face possible corruption
charges after two days of questioning by police over
allegations his company helped two African leaders win elections in return for lucrative contracts.
allegations his company helped two African leaders win elections in return for lucrative contracts.
The 66-year-old head of the Bollore Group
was taken into custody Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre as part
of an investigation into how its African logistics subsidiary secured
contracts to run Lome port in Togo and Conakry port in Guinea.
Prosecutors
are looking specifically at whether Bollore Group's communications arm,
Havas, undercharged Guinean President Alpha Conde and Togolese
President Faure Gnassingbe for work on their campaigns as a sweetener
for the contracts, Le Monde newspaper reported.
After
the questioning ended Mr Bollore and two senior executives — group
chief executive Mr Gilles Alix, and the head of the international
division of Havas, Mr Jean-Philippe Dorent — were presented to
magistrates, who could either charge them or make them key witnesses in
the case.
Railway concessions
Mr
Bollore is one of France's most powerful businessmen, at the head of a
tentacular empire with revenues of $22.4 billion in 2017 and interests
in everything from construction and logistics to media, advertising and
agriculture.
The group is heavily invested in Africa,
where it operates 10 container ports and has stakes in several others,
as well as three railway concessions and interests in palm oil
production.
The company has insisted that it won the
port tenders on the basis of its expertise and more than two billion
euros of investment in Africa over the past eight years.
"Attempting
to link the attribution of a port concession with communication
services" was "a great misunderstanding of this economic sector and
economic activity in general," it said in a statement.
Havas
worked on the campaign that brought Alpha Conde to power in Guinea in
2010, as the country's first freely elected president.
Two elections
Months
after taking office, Conde summarily terminated the contract of
Conakry's port operator — a subsidiary of French shipping company
Necotrans — and gave it to rival Bollore.
Opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo, who has lost two elections to Conde, told AFP that the decision had "surprised many."
"It
is due to the ongoing inquiry in France that Guineans discover the true
motive of this unjust and illegal move taken by Alpha Conde in the wake
of his taking power," he said.
A French court in 2013
ordered the Bollore Group to pay Necotrans two million euros in
compensation, but Bollore took over the company shortly afterwards.
Havas
also worked on the communications strategy of Togo's Gnassingbe, who
succeeded his father Gnassingbe Eyadema upon his death in 2005.
Millions in bribes
After
Gnassingbe's re-election to a second term in 2010, the Bollore Group
won the 35-year Lome port contract — a decision also challenged by a
rival.
The French investigation was triggered by a
complaint from a former Bollore associate, Jacques Dupuydauby, who is
appealing a Spanish jail sentence for misappropriation of company
assets.
In 2016, police searched Bollore Group's headquarters in the Paris suburb of Puteaux.
The probe is one of several in recent years over the dealings of French groups in former African colonies.
Others
to have been investigated include oil company Elf Aquitaine (now part
of Total), which the French state was accused of using to funnel
millions in bribes to African leaders in the 1990s, and nuclear giant
Areva, which is under scrutiny over a controversial uranium deal in
Niger.
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