Businessman plans “new currency system”

The retired chairman of the Grenada-based First International Bank of Grenada Ltd, Van.A.Brink, has said he is working on plans for a new currency system in the DRC. Interviewed by the ‘Wall Street Journal’ from his base in Uganda, Brink said he had signed three agreements with Congolese rebel groups to funnel more than US $40 million from First Bank to build roads and hospitals in the DRC. He has forged ties with the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-ML) of Ernest Wamba dia Wamba and says the rebels have agreed to promote another Brink entity, the ‘Union Reserve System’, which seeks to replace DRC’s currency with money backed by natural resources. He told the newspaper his motives “are purely humanitarian”.