According to a DRC presidential decree, Billy Rautenbach, the Zimbabwean chairman of DRC’s state mining company, Gecamines, has been replaced by a Belgian businessman, Georges-Arthur Forrest, the ‘Zimbabwe Standard’ reported on Sunday. Forrest, who was born in Congo, is well-known in the country’s business circles and heads Forrest International, a mining and civil engineering company which has been operating in Katanga province for decades. Rautenbach’s controversial appointment was announced by President Laurent-Desire Kabila last November, but according to the newspaper he has been accused of failing to turn around Gecamines which, as a result, has been facing mounting debt. However, his offshore company Ridgepoint, owns the rights to vast mineral exploitations in Katanga province.
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