Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kahamba Kutesa has been named in a scandal where Hong Kong’s Patrick Chi Ping Ho sent bribes to high-level officials in Chad and Uganda to secure business advantages for the Chinese company.
U.S. authorities arrested Hong Kong’s former home affairs secretary and the ex-foreign minister of Senegal for leading a multimillion dollar bribery scheme in Africa on behalf of a top Chinese energy company, with some deals arranged in the halls of the United Nations.
Another high ranking official in the deal was Senegalese top diplomat Cheikh Gadio who was the mediator.
In the Justice Department complaint, the two men allegedly offered a $2 million bribe to the president of Chad “to obtain valuable oil rights,” and a $500,000 bribe to an account designated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uganda, who had recently completed his term as the President of the U.N. General Assembly.
Cheikh Gadio, 61, who was the go-between and was paid $400,000 by Ho via wire transfers through New York.
“In an international corruption scheme that spanned the globe, Chi Ping Patrick Ho and Cheikh Gadio allegedly conspired to bribe African government officials on behalf of a Chinese energy conglomerate,” acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said in a statement.
The charges were based on their use of the U.S. banking system to process almost a million dollars in payoffs, sent under the guise of donations.
Ho, who led a Hong Kong-based organization called the China Energy Fund Committee, also known as CEFC and funded by CEFC China Energy, also provided Uganda’s president and foreign minister with gifts and promises of future benefits — including a share in the profits of a potential joint venture, authorities said.
“Their bribes and corrupt acts hurt our economy and undermine confidence in the free marketplace,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco.
Ho, 68, and Gadio, 61, are each charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money laundering, with possible jail sentences of as much as 20 years. They were arrested over the weekend in New York.
Ho was Hong Kong Home Affairs secretary from 2002 to 2007, and severed for several years on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee Conference.
Gadio was Senegal’s foreign minister from 2000 to 2009.
CEFC China Energy’s role was apparent in the formal complaint. It identified the chairman of the unnamed company as someone who was appointed as a “special honorary advisor” to the president of the U.N. General Assembly in 2015, when Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa held that position.
