Moïse Katumbi Biography
Moïse Katumbi Chapwe was born on 28 December 1964 is a Congolese politician and businessman. He was the Governor of the Katanga Province, located in the southern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from 2007 to September 2015. He was a member of the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD) until September 2015. He has been described by The Economist as “probably the second most powerful man in the Democratic Republic of Congo after the president, Joseph Kabila”. Jeune Afrique named him “African of the Year” in 2015.
Moïse Katumbi Age
Moïse Katumbi was born on 28 December 1964. He is 53 years as of 2018.
Moïse Katumbi Family
Moïse Katumbi was born on 28 December 1964 to a Congolese mother and a Greek father, Nissim Soriano. Katumbi’s father, a Greek Sephardic Jew, fled Rhodes Island in 1938 with his two sisters after the introduction by the Italian fascist regime of the discriminatory Racial Laws (Rhodes was under Italian occupation since 1912). He settled in Katanga, a province of the Congo, which was a Belgian colony at the time. Katumbi’s mother was of Kazembe royalty of Lunda People of Congo and Zambia and his grandfather was Mwata Kazembe XIV.(Chief of Lunda Kingdom) The family adopted the name Katumbi from a great grandfather on his mother’s side. Katumbi grew up in the village of Kashobwe in the Congo near Lake Mweru near the border of Zambia. His father was involved in the fishing trade.
Moïse Katumbi photo
Moïse Katumbi Wife
He is married to Carine Katumbi
Moïse Katumbi Children
His Children are Ishmael Katumbi, Lael Katumbi, Jonathan Katumbi
Moïse Katumbi personal life
Katumbi studied at the Kiwele school of Lubumbashi and the Kapolowe mission. He is married to Carine Katumbi. His older half-brother is Raphael Katebe Katoto, a businessman and retired politician who was a member of RCD-Goma and led a political party that opposed Congolese president Joseph Kabila in 2006.
Katumbi is one of the wealthiest people in the DRC. He has been the subject of two documentaries by director Thierry Michel: Katanga Business and The Irresistible Rise of Moïse Katumbi.
Moïse Katumbi Private career
Katumbi’s career began in the fishing industry when he was 13. He sold salted and fresh fish to the state-owned mining company Gécamines.
In 1987, he created the holding company Etablissement Katumbi to aggregate all of his business activities including mining, transportation, and food processing.
Katumbi founded MCK (Mining Company Katanga) in 1997, which specialized in mining and logistics and subcontracted for mining companies in the region, including Gécamines. By 2015, the company had grown to 1900 employees and was a leading mining company in the country. French company Necotrans bought MCK in November 2015 for an undisclosed amount.
Around 2000, during the Second Congo War, Katumbi moved to Zambia, where he had business ties in transportation. He returned to the DRC in 2003 by invitation from President Kabila, who urged Katumbi to help fix the mining industry in Katanga.
Football
Since 1997, Katumbi has been the president of the football team TP Mazembe in Lubumbashi. The team has won the CAF Champions League title five times, including 2009, 2010, and 2015, and became the first African team to play in the FIFA Club World Cup finals in 2010.
Katumbi has invested heavily in the team and been credited by the media and public as one of the reasons for the club’s success. Under his tenure, the team has recruited players from Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Ghana, and Zambia, and retained local players by paying the highest wages for players in Africa. Katumbi invested $35 million in building the team a stadium which was completed in 2011.
Katumbi began a football academy in 2012 as a social program to engage and train young Congolese people in the province of Katanga. In 2015, 2,000 young men were enrolled in the academy.
In 2012, Katumbi was elected to the FIFA strategic commission. In 2013, he was elected to the Africa Cup of Nations organizing committee, which he is slated to chair until 2017.He has also served on the marketing committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) since 2009.
Moïse Katumbi Political career
In 2006, Katumbi was elected as a deputy in the National Assembly.He was the first democratically elected Governor of the Katanga Province in January 2007, receiving 94 votes out of 102.
Katumbi’s governance has been credited with bringing economic revival to the province through developing infrastructure, encouraging foreign investment with tax breaks and reduced government procedures, and targeting corruption. Through Katumbi’s efforts as governor, local taxes increased from $80 million in 2007 to more than $3 billion in 2014. Annual revenues increased from 100 million in 2007 to 1.5 billion by 2013.
Shortly after he took office as governor, Katumbi implemented an export ban for raw minerals, including cobalt, forcing major mining companies to either build processing plants in the province or pay a tax on the exported concentrate. Under Katumbi, copper production increased from 8,000 metric tons in 2006 to more than 1 million tons in 2014.
Along with mining, Katumbi focused on expanding other areas of the province’s economy including the service industry, energy and agriculture. He offered both free farmland and tax breaks for farmers to encourage food production. Reliance on imported food decreased 68% between 2006 and 2011. In 2014, the amount of food grown locally had tripled.
The accomplishments of his administration included improving travel and commerce through the building or rebuilding more than 1,500 kilometers (approximately 30%) of roads and the increase in other infrastructure, including bridges, hospitals and schools. Access to clean water rose from 3% to 67% between 2007 and 2013. Additionally, within 6 years, the number of children attending school increased from 400,000 in 2007 to 3 million in 2014. The number of girls enrolled in school tripled. Worker-focused initiatives included encouraging local mining companies to invest in growing crops for their employees and the banning of “unnecessary dismissal of employees”.
In September 2015, Katumbi resigned as governor and from his political party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy. On 22 June 2016, he was convicted, in absentia, of selling a house that was not his and sentenced to 36 months in jail. This was seen as part of President Joseph Kabila’s attempts to hold on to power.
On 2 January 2018, Katumbi declared his candidacy for president for the 2018 DR Congo general election. The next day, his home in Lubumbashi was surrounded by police who accuse him of hiring mercenaries, which he denies.
On 12 March 2018, Katumbi officially launched his presidential campaign as well as his new political alliance, Ensemble pour le changement (Together for Change).
On 9 May, Katumbi was accused of inciting rebellion against the Kabila. He was also accused of being behind the 2018 Équateur province Ebola virus outbreak.
On 25 May, Katumbi discussed with fellow opposition presidential candidate Félix Tshisekedi at the Atlantic Council about fielding a single opposition candidate.
On 1 June, attackers burned posters of Katumbi in Lubumbushi, and attempted to attack Katumbi’s residence. The next day, it was revealed that the perpetrators were a mission sent by Kabila who tried to kill Katumbi’s relatives.
On 9 June, Katumbi gave his first presidential campaign speech via Skype to thousands of supporters in Kinshasa.
On 13 June, Katumbi was arrested at Zaventem Airport in Brussels for allegedly traveling with a fake passport while attempting to travel to Russia to attend the opening ceremony of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. He was later granted a temporary residence permit by the Belgian authorities. Katumbi discovered that Congolese authorities had canceled his passport while going through customs at Zaventem.
On 3 August 2018, Katumbi was blocked from entering DR Congo via the border with Zambia. Those close to him are discussing with MONUSCO about Katumbi’s return to the country before the presidential filing deadline on 10 August. He was greeted by thousands of his supporters in the Zambian portion of the town of Kasumbalesa, along the border with DR Congo.
On 4 August, it was announced that Katumbi would appear before the customs union to attempt to enter the country again.
On 5 August, Katumbi’s lawyer, Eric Dupond-Moretti, announced that he would attempt to reach out to the United Nations concerning Katumbi’s denial of entry into the DR Congo. The same day, Ensemble’s secretary-general Delly Sesanga announced that they would file for Katumbi to run for president even if he was not in the country.[
When the final list of retained candidate for the December 23rd election was out, his name was missing since he did not make it to return home and file for his candidature
Moïse Katumbi Views
In 2006 and 2011, Katumbi supported Joseph Kabila’s campaigns to run for President of the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, Katumbi publicly distanced himself from Kabila in 2015.
Katumbi has been outspoken about his belief that President Kabila should follow the country’s constitution and step down as president in 2016. In January 2016, Katumbi joined other high-profile Congolese figures in a coalition dubbed “Front Citoyen 2016”. The entity aims to protect the constitution and ensure that the 2016 presidential elections take place.
He is against Katanga secession from Congo, which is supported by a section of the province’s population.
Katumbi has frequently said that he prefers his private career to politics.
Moïse Katumbi Public perception
Katumbi is generally viewed positively both in Katanga Province and nationally for both his development of the Katanga region and as president of TP Mazembe. He is known for being generous, giving money directly to those who ask and investing his own funds in social causes.
The media has described Katumbi’s public perception as being a “self-made man” and a “man of the people”. In 2011, nearly one million people signed a petition asking Katumbi to remain, governor, after he said he planned to quit.
In 2012 he was named one of “The 50 most influential Africans” by The Africa Report. Jeune Afrique named him “African of the Year” in 2015
Moise Katumbi Twitter
Tweets by moise_katumbi
Moise Katumbi Facebook
Moïse Katumbi Interview
An interview with Moïse Katumbi, DR Congo’s would-be president
For a man many see as the natural heir to the presidency of the vast and populous Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Moïse Katumbi cuts a fairly reserved figure. A gentle and sometimes bashful tycoon-turned-politician, one gets the sense that if he were his biblical namesake, his instinct would be to strike a behind-the-scenes deal with the Red Sea rather than command it to part with booming authority.
Whatever his approach, however, it has put him in good stead. The son of a Jewish father from Greece and a Congolese mother, Katumbi, now a youthful 52, first made his mark in business. He inherited a role in the already-successful family company in Katanga province, but expanded its activities in mining and logistics. All of which helped make him one of the Congo’s richest people.
From 2007 to 2015, he was governor of Katanga, which saw impressive economic growth and development. Under his presidency of the Lubumbashi football team TP Mazembe, the club has won the African Champions League three times.
Now Katumbi wants to be president of the country. If free and fair elections were held, he probably would be. He has significant popularity and the support of much of the opposition. But when he’ll get a chance to test this hypothesis is anyone’s guess.
President Joseph Kabila, who has led the DRC since 2001, was meant to step down when his second mandated term expired on 19 December 2016. But he simply failed to organise elections. Protests escalated until an agreement was made on 31 December that a transitional government would be established – with Kabila still as president – and that elections would be held in 2017. Yet more than halfway through the year, the polls are no closer and the electoral commission recently announced that they have been delayed indefinitely.
Moreover, in 2016, Katumbi was sentenced to 36 months in absentia for selling a property illegally. The charges are widely considered to be politically-motivated, but they mean he is stuck in exile in Brussels.
African Arguments caught up with the wannabe Congolese president:
You’ve said repeatedly now that you’ll be returning to the DRC shortly. Do you know when yet?
I’m going as quick as possible. I went with my lawyer to the High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva and got a good answer, so I’m definitely going back. I miss my country and my people.
Do you have a date?
The date is soon. I’m like a general. I need to plan everything properly.
You have much support in the DRC, but many also distrust you, including various grassroots movements that are doing much of the mobilising on the ground today. They see you as someone who’s always lived in luxury, eating at expensive restaurants and flying in private jets, while two-thirds of Congolese live in poverty. Why should they believe in you?
In a democracy, not everyone will love you. The majority would like me to run as president. I was first a businessman. 95-97% know the true story about Moïse Katumbi. I was a hardworking person, 30 years in business, a successful businessman. I didn’t go bankrupt.
When I started as governor of Katanga, the province was sending $150 million to the national level per annum. After one year, it went to $3 billion because I fought corruption. When I am president, all the people will see the change. They can look on my website, they can talk to Katangese people to see my contribution.
How will you convince the doubters?
Kabila is attacking me – only me – because he knows in the first round I will win the elections. When I arrived as governor of Katanga, Congo was producing just 8,000 tonnes of copper per annum. I stopped exports of unprocessed material and told people to build new factories. We went from 8,000 tonnes to 1.3 million tonnes. My province was the size of France, with 4.5 million people. Within one year, the population doubled as people came from their provinces to look for good governance and jobs.
You criticise Kabila now, but you were very close to him for many years. How are substantively different from him? What specific policy changes would you make if you were president tomorrow?
I can’t deny I worked with Kabila. The constitution allowed me two terms, which I did. President Kabila today is illegal. He finished his mandate in 2016. The difference between us first is that I respected the constitution. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t jail anyone.
What is important is the future. I would first establish the authority of government and law. I’d fight corruption. Create jobs. We need to have a strong economy. How? First, you need energy. Congo has a lot of water and no energy. I would call the private sector and all partners to help us and use money you have locally to improve energy.
You need to create the middle-class. Also transparency, which is very important in the mining sector and all sectors. You’ve got the best place for tourism. You have to develop this. And develop education. The future of Congo is not mining but the brains of our young people. And develop agriculture. At the moment, our money is going to other countries for imports. We need to create jobs in agriculture. And the money must go to the central government and be published. You must not violate the budget. The president is going over the budget sometimes by 700%.
Surely everyone, including Kabila, would largely agree that all these things are important. What specifically would you do?
What I say is that I’ve done it when I was the governor. It’s not just theory. Take education. When I started, we had 300,000 students at school and less than 10% were girls. I built good infrastructure and paid teachers well. We went to over 3 million children after 9 years, 50% of whom were girls. When I began, we were importing 98% of our agriculture. When I left office, we were importing 25%, because I put everyone to work on agriculture.
The main difference you emphasise between you and Kabila seems to be that he violated the constitution. If he’d stepped down last year, would he have been a good president?
Kabila missed the train. He was supposed to leave on time, not kill the people. If he left, the international community and Congolese would be happy. No matter what he did wrong, people would respect him as the first president to bring democracy.
He did good things, he did bad things. Now everything has become very bad because of the killing.
From Kabila’s perspective, his strategies have worked. The elections are no closer, while the opposition’s divided. Veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi has passed away. You’re in exile. And the wealthy businessman and recent critic of Kabila, Sindika Dokolo, has just been sentenced to a year in prison. What’s your plan to change things?
These are short manoeuvres. You think Sindika Dokolo can steal $1 million? His father was the first black banker in the country. Because Dokolo is telling Kabila to step down, the president’s only strategy is to take him down with fake charges, like he did with me. He thinks this is successful, but this is a short road.
And how will you bring that road to an end?
We are bringing it to an end because our constitution gives us the right to remove him. At the moment, he doesn’t have any legal frame. The people are going to chase Kabila because Article 64 of our constitution allows us. We’re going to say “Mr President, the game is over”. In life, you have to always be true. You can’t be clever to more than 80 million people. The end is sure to come this year. Kabila will no longer be president.
Yes, but how will you bring this about? At the moment, he seems to hold all the cards.
Killings is not a card, killing is evil.
But it helps keep him in power.
It works for some time. You have read widely. All the people who killed, what is their end? Their end is very bad.
Perhaps, but sometimes only after decades of rule.
For us, it is not going to take decades. Congo is not other countries. 80 million people need change. Kabila should wake up.
Ok, so would you encourage people to go onto the streets to force this change?
Yes. I’m also going on the streets and will encourage the people, because today people are dying and no serious investors have come to the country since 2016.
“We have to be united because as you know we have just one run of the elections. If we want to win and bring new change in Congo, we need to be one,” he said.
“We don’t have the luxury to be many.”