Vincent Dabilgou, former Minister of Transport of Burkina Faso, was sentenced on Thursday August 17 to eleven years in prison, seven of which are suspended, for “embezzlement of public funds”, “illicit enrichment” and “money laundering”, learned the AFP from judicial sources. Mr. Dabilgou was minister from 2018 to 2022, under the presidency of Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, overthrown by a putsch in January 2022.
The High Court of Ouagadougou found Mr. Dabilgou “guilty” of acts of “embezzlement of public funds”, relating to 1.12 billion CFA francs (some 1.7 million euros), “illicit enrichment”, “money laundering” and “hidden political party financing”, including the New Time for Democracy (NTD), the party he chairs. He will also have to pay a fine of 3.3 billion CFA francs (4.7 million euros) and the activities of his party have been suspended.
Confiscation of former minister’s assets
Four other people, including two former collaborators of Mr. Dabilgou at the Ministry of Transport, also received prison sentences ranging from six to eleven years and heavy fines. The court also ordered the confiscation of the former minister’s property, up to the sums embezzled for the benefit of the public treasury and pronounced his ineligibility for five years.
The NTD, a former party of the presidential movement, won 13 parliamentary seats in the 2020 legislative elections, against 3 in 2015. On September 30, 2022, a coup brought to power in Ouagadougou Captain Ibrahim Traoré who overthrew the Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, author of a first putsch which had overthrown President Kaboré a few months earlier.
