A small Montreal company is caught in the middle of a bribery scandal in the Democratic Republic of Congo that threatens to rock relations between Ottawa and the government of the former Zaire.
A senior Congolese cabinet minister was detained last weekend, weeks after she accepted a free trip to Canada and dined with senior Canadian government officials, including David Kilgour, the Secretary of State for Africa.
Odette Babandoa, Minister of Transport and Communications, had previously awarded a $41.5-million contract to Navigation Aeronav International Inc., a Lachine, Que., company that sells air traffic communications systems to developing countries.
Although she was released after a few hours, Ms. Babandoa continues to be investigated by the Congolese government over allegations of corruption in awarding the contract, which was backed by the Canadian International Development Agency and hinges on financing from Canada's Export Development Corp.
Canadian government officials and Aeronav executives maintain the allegations are without foundation and may stem from an internal fight among senior Congolese officials connected with losing bids from Austrian and British firms.
"We know, and it's not surprising in this country [Congo] there's some opposition to Aeronav because there are people who want some other supplier," said Benoit Couture, Aeronav's vice-president of business development. "It will be demonstrated that this is a clean project. We can live with that."
Ms. Babandoa's lawyer husband, Nicolas Okende Katako, was also arrested on the weekend and transferred to prison in the capital, Kinshasa, said a local human rights group, Voice of the Voiceless.
The contract to refurbish the airport communications systems in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi, Congo's two biggest cities, is considered the most important agreement yet between Canada and the government of Laurent Kabila. Mr. Kabila, a former guerrilla, ousted the notoriously corrupt leader Mobutu Sese Seko in 1998.
It is also a test of Mr. Kabila's stated resolve to ensure contracts are decided fairly.
The deal involves a $440,000 grant from CIDA and was personally promoted by Canada's ambassador to Congo, Verona Edelstein, who took the unusual diplomatic step this week of publicly denouncing the bribery allegations. The deal is also guaranteed by the Canadian Commercial Corp., a federally owned agency that backs trade deals.
Ms. Babandoa was detained last Friday, a day after Mr. Kilgour left Kinshasa, where he had attended a dinner with her and two other Congolese ministers at the Canadian ambassador's residence. They had talked of a new stage of relations between the countries.
As part of the winning bid for the airport contract, Ms. Babandoa visited Ottawa in May on a technical mission, during which she met Mr. Kilgour and Pierre David, director-general of CIDA Inc., a controversial aid program that gives money to Canadian companies to help them win overseas contracts.
"She had funds from her own government, too," Mr. Couture said of the minister's trip to Canada. "We paid for her airfare only."
A spokesman for the Ottawa-based EDC said the lending agency and its lawyer in Kinshasa are conducting their own investigation, and will not finance the project if it uncovers any trace of bribery -- a decision that would be a major setback for bilateral relations.
"We won't support a transaction that involves a bribe or the offer of a bribe," Rod Giles said.
The Kabila government, which is struggling to win favour in the West, has vowed to wipe out corruption. In cases not related to the Aeronav contract, three other ministers were arrested last month, held in custody for several weeks and then dropped from cabinet, although they have not been charged. Another minister and the head of the Congo's state-owned hydroelectric company were also detained recently for one month on suspicions of corruption, but later released and allowed to keep their jobs.
The Aeronav project was to mark one of the most serious steps yet by the Congolese government to rejoin the international economy after decades of corrupt rule and civil war. Although the country is the size of Western Europe, with more mineral wealth than any other nation in Africa, it remains deeply impoverished, running on an infrastructure that has not been upgraded in decades.
Mr. Couture said the air traffic communications technology is at least 20 years old, and is a major reason for the increasing number of plane crashes in the country.
The Aeronav deal includes high-frequency equipment for rural areas to improve ground-to-air communications.
"The reason that we got this contract, and Aeronav would never get this contract on its own, was the involvement of the Canadian government," Mr. Couture said.
"This contract is more than a commercial deal. It involves two countries, and one really needs help."
The deal would also be the biggest project yet for Aeronav, a privately owned company that has worked in about 30 countries and has received CIDA and EDC support for other deals.
Mr. Couture said Aeronav has been supplying spare parts for three years to the Congolese airport authority, known by its acronym RVA, using technology it bought indirectly in 1993 from Philips, the Dutch-based conglomerate that designed the original air traffic communications system in Zaire.
When RVA decided to overhaul the system last year, it conducted an international tender, finally awarding the contract to Aeronav in March.
The contract still depends on a final agreement between the EDC, the Congolese government and the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association . The arrangement calls for IATA to repay the Canadian-backed loan on behalf of the Congolese government, using the fees it collects from airlines flying over the vast country that sits under Africa's main north-south air routes.
"The technical side of the project is overseen by IATA to make sure they don't spend the money on Mercedes," Mr. Couture said.