“The man who claimed to smell the stench of embezzlement is now drowning in his own perfume.”
In 2023, he stood out in a discredited and aging political class. The youngest candidate in the presidential race, Constant Mutamba Tungunga was idolized by a youth eager for change. A self-proclaimed populist, trained lawyer, and founder of the DYPRO (Progressive Revolutionary Dynamic) movement, he positioned himself as a symbol of renewal; promising firm, popular justice, unflinching in the face of endemic impunity. His appointment in May 2024 as Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals in Judith Suminwa’s government was widely seen as a historic turning point.
But the façade quickly crumbled. Almost immediately, the young minister earned a reputation as a “death sentence dispenser,” a phrase that went viral. Opponents, journalists, citizens, and even political allies feared his incendiary declarations, often made without due process or public evidence. The shadow of judicial repression loomed over all dissent.
But power does not merely corrupt ;it reveals. And in Mutamba’s case, the revelation is stark. The man who once denounced “the stench of embezzlement” within his own coalition is now at the center of a scandal involving the alleged embezzlement of over $19 million through a shady prison construction contract in Kisangani. The deal, awarded without a competitive bidding process, benefited a shell company created just days before the agreement was signed. At the time, the city itself faced serious threats from the M23/AFC rebel offensive ;making the project as politically incoherent as it was suspicious.
Worse still, leaked documents suggest Mutamba also received $450,000 to orchestrate raids on the properties of former president Joseph Kabila, while financing a network of influencers to manipulate public opinion. The Ministry of Justice appears to have morphed into a tool for propaganda and political intimidation; serving a regime increasingly detached from its democratic promises.
In ministerial meetings, Mutamba was notorious for accusing colleagues of corruption, claiming to smell “embezzlement” among the ranks of the Sacred Union. His zeal embarrassed even Prime Minister Judith Suminwa, who reportedly had to publicly rebuke him. Now, that same political camp is scrambling to distance itself from a minister turned liability ; a man who has become the very embodiment of what he once vowed to fight.
How did a bright young intellectual, a promising lawyer, come to personify the worst of Congolese justice: corrupt, repressive, and politically manipulated? Is it the Tshisekedi regime that corrupts even the most idealistic? Or does the system simply attract those who never truly believed in the values they publicly championed?
Summoned by MPs Willy Mishiki and Fontaine Mangala , Mutamba must now account for his actions before the National Assembly. But beyond the parliamentary proceedings, a deeper question persists: Can the Democratic Republic of Congo still be saved when even its so-called reformers turn into state-sponsored fraudsters?
The Mutamba affair is not just another scandal in a long series of Congolese impunity. It is a red alert: about the normalization of institutional corruption, the collapse of justice, and the profound failure of a regime that once promised the rule of law; but has delivered nothing more than theatrical governance and empty bravado.
Behind the fiery speeches and authoritarian posturing lies a grim truth: Mutamba is no longer the media darling or rising star, but the distorted reflection of a system in decay, where morality is sacrificed daily on the altar of unchecked power.
At this rate, every day with Félix Tshisekedi at the helm drags the DRC further from its long-overdue reconstruction.
History will remember ; and it will judge.
