quote:

PH Andre van Deventer,

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Originally posted by dogcat:
Unbelievable to treat elder statesman of hunting, Peter Flack, like that!
Peter does his homework and was seriously looking forward to this hunt!

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Originally posted by Biebs:
Mike Burke left a week or so ago...hope he made out OK.

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Originally posted by MJines:

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Originally posted by Biebs:
Mike Burke left a week or so ago...hope he made out OK.

Mike is hunting with Cam Greig. I actually spoke to Mike by sat phone on Tuesday and he was fine . . . sounded like he was having quite an adventure.

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It's strange that the partners in Namibia didn't give the incoming partners any warning that there was trouble in camp. They had to know that something was wrong.

Frank

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Originally posted by MJines:
Mike is hunting with Cam Greig. I actually spoke to Mike by sat phone on Tuesday and he was fine . . . sounded like he was having quite an adventure.

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Originally posted by Kathi:
http://www.huntingreport.com/p...lackcongosafaris.cfm



CAVEAT CONGO



By Peter Flack, Hunting Report Subscriber


Editor's Note: Peter Flack sent us the following narrative of a disastrous safari to Congo Brazzaville in June 2016. He had booked a safari with Congo Hunting Safaris through Christophe Beau of Grand Safari. The Congo operation was operated by Tielman and Carin Neethling from Namibia with an onsite Congolese staff coordinating local logistics and a staff of professional hunters managing the camp and guiding clients. The Hunting Report has been following this operation since 2011, when it was operated by Gert Saimaan of South Africa. The operation has seen a number of challenges, including problems with firearm import permits, conflicts with a neighbouring NGO, trophy shipping glitches, delayed hunting licenses, and now what seems like a feud between the Neethlings and their Congolese partner.

Besides Flack's complaint (Hunt Report 10560) we also received a few days later a complaint from subscriber Art French and his wife Thelma (Hunt Report 10561). We encourage you to read them both, as they contain all the correspondence from all parties involved. You should also read the other subscriber hunt reports and past articles we have in our database on this hunting opportunity to get a complete picture of what has happened here.

It would appear as if the shareholders in the company holding the Congo Hunting Safaris/Congo Safaris (Congo Safaris) hunting concessions in northern Congo are at loggerheads with one another, and I would advise anyone thinking about hunting there to consider very carefully before booking a hunt with this company and, if they have already booked, of going there.

I arrived at Bonyo Camp, north of Pokola and south of Ndoki Du, a four-hour drive after crossing the Sangha River, which borders the little town of Ouessou, on Wednesday, 1 June 2016, with my guide, the urbane, calm and competent French and African PH, Christophe Beau, after a trying day in which my 38-year old Brno .375 was closely inspected seven times and the details of my passport, visa and Congolese firearms permit were laboriously handwritten on various sheets of scrap paper almost each time.

It was a relief to arrive at Erik Stockenstroom's well built, original camp. I had booked a safari with him many years ago, but it had been cancelled after the Congolese government summarily cancelled his bongo quota and he, in turn, was kidnapped, assaulted, tied to a tree in the rainforest and left to die, while his young, female South African camp cook was repeatedly raped in his absence. I hoped that, in the interim, things had improved since then, but you can judge for yourself.

Things were not well in the camp and the following allegations were made by the South African camp manager and the three South African professional hunters in camp:

The majority shareholder (70%), Tielman Neethling (TL), a successful and well respected Namibian cattle farmer, game rancher and butchery chain owner had invested approximately R15 million ($1 million) in Congo Safaris over the previous three years.

The minority shareholder (30%), a bible toting and quoting Congolese businessman, Edgar Ewany Opani (EEP), who currently lived outside Pretoria on a luxury golf estate, was seeking to take over the company for his own account and had misappropriated between R3 million ($200 000) and R6 million ($400 000) provided by TL.

This included, for example, R500 000 ($33 500) transferred directly to EEP by TL to allow him to pay the customs duty owing on five new Nissan Patrol vehicles and a 40-foot shipping container with four aluminium boats and engines, plus building materials bought by TL and sent to the Congo for use by Congo Safaris, which he had failed to pay resulting in these assets of the company languishing at Point Noire, the Congolese port on the Atlantic, for over eight months always assuming they were still there.

Staff appointed by EEP had similarly misappropriated funds and, for example, charged the company four times the amount payable to the government for the work permits for the four South Africans.

The South African staff at Bonyo camp had been threatened by EEP, both verbally and in writing, that unless they left the camp on the day we arrived, they would be arrested and jailed.

A new camp manager, the controversial Andre van Deventer (who had previously run the camp), was due to take over the management and PHing duties on Monday, 6 June. Mr Van Deventer is a member of an even more controversial family apart from working for a number of controversial bosses in the past and his name has been associated with rhino poaching on more than one occasion.

More importantly, from my point of view, was the following:
My hunting license was not in camp, and I could not hunt legally without it.

The only vehicle in camp was an old, hopelessly unroadworthy Toyota HiLux, which literally had no brakes at all, no lights, no 4x4 capacity, no winch and no mud tires. The latter three characteristics were essential for travel in the wet, muddy rainforest and the absence of the former two, made the driver liable to arrest and incarceration unless a hefty bribe was paid.

Christophe Beau, while acting as my guide, did not have a Congolese work permit and my designated professional hunter was one of the four South Africans who, as I soon discovered, was about to leave the country in two days' time.

On the advice of Christophe Beau and, according to my own evaluation of the situation, there appeared no alternative but to leave camp when the South Africans did and so began a very long and difficult journey back to the capital, Brazzaville, over the next two days.

First, a four-hour car trip from camp to the Sangha River in the unroadworthy vehicle described above on dirt roads soaked and muddy after a thunderous downpour the day before, the likes of which none of us had ever experienced.

Then, a motorised pirogue over the river and a night in a local, cockroach infested hotel in Ouessou while we tried to hire a car and driver to take us to Brazzaville, as the next of the twice-weekly flights from Ouessou to Brazzaville was in three days' time. Incidentally, the actual cost of the hire turned out to be less than half that quoted by Steve, the EEP appointed Congo Safaris staff member in Oessou.

We were told by him that the 840-kilometre trip was over a good, tarred road, subject to about six spot checks and would take no more than 10 to 12 hours.

After being stopped at 21 extortion points - as we came closer to Brazzaville, the armed and drunk police/gendarmes/army personnel dispensed with all formalities and simply demanded, "Give money!" loudly, frequently and while waving around their firearms in a very threatening manner - we arrived at our hotel at 02h00 after a 15-hour trip. The 13th stop at 22h10 was the longest as an army captain made us unpack every item in every suitcase in the road and took nearly 1½ hours to slowly and painstakingly search them, including examining every photo on our cameras, the inside of my camera lenses and medical kit (including the container with effervescent tablets), not to mention my rifle and ammunition.

Entering the country, despite presenting a valid passport and visa to the immigration officials, I was required to produce, "The other paper," a regular request as I was to learn. In this case, he eventually asked for the written invitation issued by the government to visit the country, a copy of which has to accompany every visa application and which is then retained by the embassy issuing the visa. Fortunately, the meet-and-greet man from Congo Safaris drove to their offices in Brazzaville and fetched a duplicate original while we were forced to wait for over an hour for his return and eventually reached our hotel after 01h00.

On my internal domestic flight from Brazzaville to Ouessou en route to Bonyo Camp, I was obliged to produce my passport and visa and Congolese firearms permit yet again. However, the customs official - yes, in the domestic airport - would not accept the permit and insisted I produce, "The other paper". Eventually, he asked for the original invoice for my rifle as neither my South African firearms licence nor my South African temporary import/export permit would do. In desperation, the Congo Safaris meet-and-greet staff member called the police and the stupidly incompetent and grossly corrupt buffoon accepted as a face saving measure that, if I registered my rifle and ammunition with the police, that would suffice. Barely an hour later there was an action replay on the banks of the Sangha River outside Ouessou, except this time all my luggage was rummaged through by the grubby fingers of three customs officials lazing under a tree on the banks of the river.

Our exit from the country was even worse and the corrupt Kenya Airlines manager at Maya Maya International Airport refused to load my rifle and ammunition on my return flight despite having been advised in writing four days previously to do so by Kenya Airlines who had transported me, my rifle and ammunition from Johannesburg to Brazzaville a few days earlier.

Finally, I would like to make two last points. Firstly, we were deliberately singled out for this treatment. Other vehicles, the same or similar to ours, were usually waved through the various extortion points but, as soon as they saw our white faces, the chef de poste would be eagerly summoned, and we were surrounded by the rest of the police/army/gendarme personnel and the ritual shake-down would begin. Secondly, ever since President Obama indicated that the recent presidential elections in the Congo were neither free nor fair, which they manifestly were not, Americans and, by implication, all English-speaking whites, appeared to be singled out for this aggressive and corrupt treatment.

I am an African. I have been the CEO of a gold mining group quoted on the London Stock Exchange with subsidiaries in nine African countries and have hunted in a further 19. I am not a novice to African travel with or without firearms and have long since had their golden rules etched onto my internal hard drive, but I have never remotely come across such shameless, blatant, pervasive and voracious corruption, dishonesty and incompetence in my life, accompanied by such clear and unequivocal threats should you not comply, and it seems to me that this is the very essence of what passes for Congolese culture. I will never, ever go there again.

Lastly, I have a suggestion. If the breath of many of these dangerously drunk, armed men at the various extortion points could be bottled, there would be a ready market for it as a paint stripper or for use as a thermal lance to melt metal.