It said workers were employed without contracts, hours were not respected, salaries were paid at less than the official rate, people were unfairly fired and there was no security and little medical care.

The construction group, China Railway Engineering Corporation (Crec), was slammed by the African Association for the Defence of Human Rights (Asadho).

No one from Crec was available to comment Monday but China's ambassador to the DR Congo, Wu Zexian, questioned the credibility of Asadho's report.

"Why only Chinese companies, when companies from other countries are doing the same thing?" he told AFP. "Widening the field of inquiry would have given this report more credibility."

In 2008, the Congolese government signed a multi-billion-dollar agreement with Beijing for the renovation or construction of more than 6,000 kilometres (3,700 miles) of roads and 3,000 kilometres of railway, as well as two dams, hospitals, accommodation and schools across the country.

Mineral-rich but ravaged by years of war, the DR Congo has been increasingly reliant on cash from China to shore up the government and fund reconstruction.

But Asadho, citing an investigation in mid-November at various sites where Crec was constructing roads, said it was complicit in "the impoverishment of local workers."

In November, it added, the dollar was worth 890 Congolese francs, but Crec was paying only 420 francs to the dollar.

The report also cited the sacking of two employees for not carrying out an insruction given in Mandarin.

The rights group further criticised the "powerlessness and fear" of labour inspectors who, it alleged, were refusing to act against Crec managers.

Those managers, it went on, enjoyed favoured status effectively exonerating them from their legal obligations to Congolese workers.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News