Georges Moulaert

Georges Brunon Joseph Marie Moulaert was born in Bruges, Belgium, on 19 May 1875.

His father was a doctor, and the family was well to do.

He studied the classics in school, then entered the Royal Military School in 1892.

He became a 2nd lieutenant of the engineers on 22 December 1894, based in Antwerp at the Compagnie special des Pontonniers et des torpilleurs (Special pontoon and torpedo boat company).

Moulaert became a member of Antwerp's "Club africain", where he met colonials who had returned to the country.

He decided to enter the service of the Congo Free State, and was accepted after an interview with Charles Liebrechts, secretary general of the Interior Department of the Free State.

He was seconded to the Military Cartographic Institute, used by the Belgian state to make soldiers available to King Leopold II's private colony.

Three of his brothers also spent time in the Congo, including Julien Moulaert and Maurice Moulaert.

At the end of 1919 Louis Franck, the Minister of the Colonies, gave Moulaert responsibility for the state mines at Kilo and Moto.

These were located in largely hostile territory, with no communications and very primitive operations.

Moulaert tackled improvements to roads, transport, medical support, supplies and crops, as well as mining installations, exploitation of alluvium and eluvium deposits, prospecting and research.

Between 1920 and 1924 the company built 828 kilometres (514 mi) of roads, with many metal bridges, and installed 345 kilometres (214 mi) of telegraph and telephone lines.

In 1924 a 1,500 horsepower (1,100 kW) hydroelectric power station was inaugurated at Soleniana and the grinding plant was electrified.

Due to poor transport across the Congo region, particularly the Matadi-Léopoldville Railway, the company developed a route from the Uele River to the Nile to transport cotton, coffee and other products of the region.

In 1924 Moulaert returned to Brussels on a visit, and was appointed secretary general of a commission to examining the colony's transport.

In 1926 the Régie industrielle des Mines d’Or de Kilo-Moto was converted to a Congolese limited liability company.

Moulaert was made chairman of the board.

He continued to head the company until 1947.

Moulaert boosted gold production at Kilo-Moto, but his methods were questioned, particularly forced recruitment of Black workers, who totaled 10,012 in 1918 and over 40,000 in 1939.

An official report drafted by Colonel Alexis Bertrand in 1931 said from 35% to 50% of able bodied adult men were forced to leave their homes to work the gold deposits, far above the official limit of 10% set by the Manpower Commission.

This caused public controversy.

Moulaert strongly defended "his" company, but criticism continued into the 1940s.

On 5 September 1928 he was a founding director of the Chantier Naval et Industriel du Congo, and remained a director until 1958.

On 1 February 1929 Moulaert was involved in founding the Symaf company, and became chairman of the board.

On 29 January 1932 he was one of the founders of Symétain, and on 25 November 1937 became president of Symétain.

He remained on the boards of Symaf and Symétain until his death.

In 1935 Moulaert visited Kalima, where mining was just starting, and drew up plans for offices, houses, a hospital and workers camps.

In the mid-1930s Moulaert obtained the rank of honorary reserve major general in the Belgian army.

From 1937 to 1954 Moulaert was administrator of the Crédit Général du Congo, which in November 1948 became the Compagnie Financière Africaine.

He held senior management positions in Société Congolaise de Gaz (Sogaz), Usine de textiles Texaf (Utexléo), Filatures et Tissages de Fibres au Congo (Tissaco), Société Commerciale Des Textiles (Socotex), Compagnie du Congo pour le Commerce et l’Industrie (CCCI) and Compagnie des Produits et des Frigorifères du Congo.

From 1934 to 1938 he was president of the Association des Intérêts coloniaux belges (Association of Belgian Colonial Interests).

In the late 1930s Rodolphe Dufour, commissioner of Stanleyville Province, was the target of concerted and virulent attacks from La Belgika and the Kilo-Moto Gold Mines delivered by their influential representatives André Gilson, also president of the Association of Belgian Colonial Interests, and by Moulaert.

They claimed that Dufour failed to support colonial interests and caused great damage as a result.

Moulaert was a founding member of the Royal Colonial Institute (later the Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences), and became president of the institute in 1943.

He died in Brussels on 17 September 1958.