Viktar Sheiman and businessman Alyaksandr Zingman attended Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s meeting today on developing cooperation with Africa. During the event, Lukashenka demanded that officials monetise the political capital accumulated on the continent.
Viktar Sheiman has overseen African affairs for several years. He did so while serving as Lukashenka’s property manager. In 2021, when Lukashenka dismissed him from that post, he asked Sheiman not to go far and to continue working with Africa, Cuba, and Venezuela. Since then, Lukashenka has repeatedly received his reports on these areas. For example, in January this year, it was reported that Viktar Sheiman met with Lukashenka and briefed him on the “expansion of Belarusian presence” in Africa, including the creation of joint ventures, supplies of engineering and food products, construction of road and railway infrastructure, training of specialists to operate Belarusian equipment, its servicing and repair, and the construction of power plants.
Businessman Alyaksandr Zingman owns the company AFTRADE DMCC, which sells Belarusian machinery in Africa. He is considered close to Viktar Sheiman. Zingman frequently appears in photo reports of visits by African delegations to Belarus and Belarusian delegations to Africa. For instance, he attended talks between Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo during the latter’s visit to Belarus. He also accompanied a delegation from Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health during its visit to the country.
In 2021, a journalistic investigation was published about a company linked to Alyaksandr Zingman and Viktar Sheiman’s son, Syarhey, which was engaged in gold mining in Zimbabwe.
