Niger’s Minister of Communication, Mahamadou Zada, has been jailed for allegedly being involved in a high-profile embezzlement case.
While briefing AFP recently, a judicial source said the amount involves three billion CFA Francs (over 4.5 million Euros) and it was embezzled when Zada was managing a public company (Société de Patrimoine des mines du Niger) between 2013 and 2021.
The public company manages the Nigerien state’s holdings in mining companies that operate in the country, including uranium.
According to this source, a Judge of the economic and financial division of Niamey that quizzed Zada ordered”his incarceration in Kollo”, a city located 50 km south of Niamey, the capital.
The Nigerien press reveal that the scandal escalated when the management of Taanadi, a local micro-finance bank, wrote to Sopamin last year that it had not found any trace in its books of a CFAF 3 billion deposit announced by Sopamin.
The state-owned company had already been implicated in a scandal connected to international trade in uranium organised by the French group Areva (now Orano) over the sale of a large quantity of uranium for $320 million in 2011.
President Bazoum, who made the fight against corruption one of his major priorities, recently said that “some thirty senior state officials, guilty of embezzlement or misappropriation, are currently in prison and will remain there for a long time”.
It remains unclear when the trial of the case will be held.
