Special report · September 2026
Ministers and associates
The names on the branches are not a conspiracy chart drawn by a court. They are people and bodies who signed paper, held shares, registered titles, or handled cash that investigators have placed next to Manono.
The two ministers named in this file
Antoinette N’Samba Kalambayi
Minister of Mines, April 2021–June 2024. Signed the 2022 award decrees and the 28 January 2023 cancellations. Later national deputy for Lukunga.
Alive in the public record as of September 2026. No obituary located. No criminal conviction for licence theft located.
Guy Loando Mboyo
Minister of State for Regional Planning from April 2021, later Relations with Parliament. Investigations report Dathomir was about 20 per cent owned by Loando and family. Former AVZ board nominee of Dathomir.
Alive in the public record as of September 2026. No obituary located. No criminal conviction for licence theft located.
Célestin Kibeya Kabemba / Cominière SA
Director-general of the state miner since 2022 (technical director from 2014). Signed Cominière’s reply to Resource Matters. Original 25 per cent of Dathcom; sold 15 per cent to a Zijin subsidiary for a declared US$33.44 million. IGF later valued those shares near US$154 million. ICC 10 March 2025: €39.1 million plus interest for breaching emergency orders.
Jean-Félix Mupande / CAMI
Former head of the mining cadastre. CAMI registers titles and collects surface fees. Family holdings in mining JVs are legal under Congolese law. CAMI executed the Kalemie re-registration and later the PR 4029 forfeiture.
Cong Maohuai (“Simon Cong”) / Dathomir
Original private majority partner with Cominière. Sold down to AVZ. Global Witness and ZAM associate the Dathomir circle with up to about US$28 million from permit-carousel style deals. ICC 2025 confirmed AVZ’s 2020 SPA for a 10 per cent slice.
Zijin / Jinxiang / Manono Lithium SAS
Authorised to work the north from October 2023. Production and first exports reported in 2026. Source of a US$70 million “humanitarian” pledge routed via NGO Le Bouclier.
Me Christian Lukusa / Momentum Attorneys
Judicial escrow holder for about US$20 million (Kinshasa commercial court, 2021). AVZI’s later lawyers (Matadi Nenga, letter MF/MA/185/2024) accused him of breach of trust and forgery. EcoNews RDC: he “vanished with US$20 million”. He denied it on Mines.cd (20 Oct 2024). AfroNews24 (June 2026) says neither he nor Rawbank will confirm the money is still there. Not a conviction.
NGO Le Bouclier / Jean-David E’Ngazi
Channel for the US$70 million pledge. Reporting describes leadership sitting on or close to the Cominière board — a conflict of interest — and a weak public audit trail on part of the sum. Congolese social-media posts in March 2026 reported he had died; no official obituary located.