• Two public officials have been sentenced to three years after being convicted of embezzling public funds in the DRC
• They were found guilty of diverting money earmarked for unfinished roadworks in Kinshasa 
• The prosecutors had sought 15-year sentences

Two public officials were sentenced to three years at hard labour after being convicted of embezzling public funds in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, three days after the unprecedented conviction of top presidential aide Vital Kamerhe.

Benjamin Wenga, director-general of the Office for Roads and Drainage, and Fulgence Bamaros, head of the National Road Maintenance Fund, were found guilty of diverting money earmarked for unfinished roadworks in Kinshasa and the eastern cities of Goma and Bukavu.

Their co-defendant Modeste Makabuza, head of the local construction company SOCOC, was sentenced to one year at hard labour by the Kinshasa-Gombe high court.

Like the death penalty, sentences of hard labour are still allowed under the DRC's penal code but are rarely applied.

The prosecutors had sought 15-year sentences for the three.

On Saturday, the court followed the prosecution's recommendation by sentencing Kamerhe, President Felix Tshisekedi's chief of staff, to 20 years at hard labour, also for embezzlement - a stunning ruling for a figure who was considered untouchable in Congolese political life.

Investigations 

Both trials concerned public funds for Tshisekedi's so-called "100 days" programme announced after his inauguration in January 2019.

A broader campaign is under way for the "renewal" of the justice system to help root out entrenched corruption.

In Kamerhe's high-profile, nationally televised trial, he was convicted, alongside a Lebanese businessman and another presidential aide, of embezzling more than $50 million allocated to the construction of social housing.

His lawyers have appealed the verdict - and said hard labour is banned under the country's constitution - while Kamerhe, 61, has said the trial was a plot to prevent him from securing the presidency in the next election in 2023.

Congolese anti-corruption activists have welcomed the verdict but say they regret that investigations did not include events dating back to the government former president Joseph Kabila, who led the vast central African country from 2001 to 2018.

Last September, Tshisekedi said he would not go "poking around in the past".