A former prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Augustin Matata Ponyo, has been sentenced to ten years of forced labor for corruption.
The Congolese Constitutional Court found Matata guilty on Tuesday of embezzling around $245 million (Sh31.6 billion) in public funds.
Deogratias Mutombo, the ex-governor of the DR Congo central bank, was also convicted in the case.
Matata’s legal team told Reuters that they consider the verdict unjust and politically driven.
Some of the stolen money was meant for a large agricultural development project designed to address the country’s ongoing food shortages.
Matata led the DRC government as prime minister from 2012 to 2016 and now leads the Leadership and Governance for Development party (LGD).
Before his time as prime minister, he was finance minister and earned praise from the International Monetary Fund for stabilizing the national economy.
Mutombo, who previously headed the central bank, received a five-year forced labor sentence in connection with the same case.
He has yet to make any public statements regarding the judgment.
In the DR Congo, forced labor is permitted as a court-ordered criminal penalty, according to the US State Department.
Both individuals are prohibited from holding public office for five years after completing their forced labor sentences, AFP reports.
Matata, who initially ran against President Felix Tshisekedi in the 2023 elections before withdrawing, has always denied the accusations.
This legal case has been ongoing for nearly four years, following a 2020 report by the country’s Inspectorate General of Finance that exposed the misappropriation connected to the Bukanga-Lonzo Agro-Industrial Park.
This park was one of Africa’s largest agricultural investments, with the African Development Bank Group projecting it would create 22,000 jobs.
The project aimed to help the 28 million people in the DRC currently facing severe food insecurity—a crisis worsened by over three decades of conflict stemming from the 1994 Rwandan genocide.