DRC President Fèlix Tshisekedi’s visit to the Katanga territory of Lualaba Province where he has kicked off his campaigns ahead of the 20 December Presidential Elections has not been received with the delight that a leader would expect from his own people.
Tshisekedi’s arrival in Lualaba has instead reminded people of Katanga of the several unfulfilled promises and how he has neglected the people that handed him the mandate to suffer and live in abject poverty while he watches foreigners benefit from the territory’s rich mineral resources at the expense of the Congolese people.
Two non-governmental organizations in Kolwezi city of Lualaba Province, Initiative Pour la Bonne Gouvernance Et Les Droits Humain (IBGDH) as well as the Observatory for Studies and Support for Social and Environmental Responsibility (OEARSE) penned a letter highlighting a number of pertinent issues and anomalies around the mining sector in Katanga territory.
Below are extracts from the letter to Tshisekedi by the IBGDH and OEARSE;
Mr. President of the Republic, the national opinion recalls that during your working visit in Lualaba Province in May 2021 and while addressing the population, you banged your fist on the table in commiting to ensuring a win-win partnership between the DRC and extractive companies.
Therefore, there should be no question that multinationals can continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the Congolese people.
Two years after you made this promise, the non-governmental organizations, IBGDH and OEARSE, welcome you to the Katanga region and present their findings to see together what has actually changed for the populations of the mining areas.
Mr. President of the Republic, our organizations inform you that there are however too many tears among the populations, from Kasaji, the second town of Lualaba to Kasumbalesa in Upper Katanga, families lack stable and affordable electricity; artisanal operators in the copper-cobalt sector are victims of the well-organized mafia maintained by politically exposed actors; Farmers lose their land and livelihoods without fair and equitable compensation.
Mr. President of the Republic, without a doubt, multinationals continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the Congolese without the administrative services of the State fully playing their roles of control and regulation.
Furthermore, it must also be said that our airports and more particularly that of Luano in Lubumbashi, receive every day hundreds of foreigners who come to work in the mining sector, including in positions and categories of work reserved exclusively for nationals, which does not allow the transfer of skills in the majority of mining companies; villages and urban neighborhoods like the Gécamines Kolwezi district in Lualaba are disappearing in favor of mining activities; residents of mining areas like Musonoi, Ntambwe Munana, suffer the negative impacts of businesses without any real protection from state organs; former GECAMINES employees and retirees are not covered by the National Social Security Fund while others are claiming their salary arrears.
For mining contracts and projects which have been the subject of a particular look by your administration such as SICOMINES, TFM and GLENCORE, the opinion notes that the discussions seem to be carried out in opacity and without citizens really perceiving the interests of the Congo and the Congolese.
As an indication, the national government signed two transactional agreements with TFM and GLENCORE without taking into account the obligation for the companies to repair the damage caused to the victims. It therefore becomes difficult for citizens to trace and understand the dividends and the entity that will capture this income.
Mr. President of the Republic, the EITI, the IGF and civil society have documented the weaknesses in the SICOMINES contract and the abusive extension of tax exemptions to other projects like BUSANGA. Your determination to renegotiate was of great comfort to many Congolese people. Unfortunately the opacity which surrounds the current negotiations and pushes certain languages in the press to evoke a revisitation of the contracts according to the partisan interests “friendships” between the two countries.
Our Organizations fear, as in the past, that certain political figures will sign secret mining contracts to the detriment of the interests of the nation in order to finance elections.
Mr. President of the Republic, the population of Rusthuru, Rumangambo, Bunagana suffers from the barbaric acts of the enemies of the nation and that of the Katanga region from the absence of State authority in the extractive sector. This situation is worrying at the highest level and calls for your particular attention if we really want change.
Excellency, to enlighten your opinion, our organizations are relaying the complaints of the populations who denounce the following:
- The organized mafia in the artisanal mining sector:
In the artisanal mining sector, there is a form of mafia and shenanigans which are maintained by politically exposed figures who present themselves on artisanal mining sites or industrial operating permits as being privileged to those in power.
These personalities are cited everywhere, control and negatively influence the supply chain of minerals from artisanal industries. Our organizations believe that the reputation of our copper-cobalt depends on the restoration of order in the artisanal mining sector.
Mr. President of the Republic during your stay, it could be possible to inaugurate the Musompo Trading Center. But the question is how will the said Center be supplied? Are you going to inaugurate a market whose source of supply is unknown?
- Forced evictions and relocations in violation of the mining code by mining companies including COMMUS, CHEMAF, METALKOL, TFM, SOMIDEZE
In this area, the two Organizations recall that despite the modification of the mining code and regulations, local communities or communities surrounding mining projects continue to lose arable land and housing without any resettlement plan or fair, equitable and sustainable compensation.
For information purposes, there are several conflicts in Lualaba between businesses and local populations due to illegal relocation processes. The Provincial Authority often signs relocation authorizations for companies without first being reassured of the existence of a resettlement plan. Such are the cases of the Gécamines Kolwezi district in downtown Kolwezi, Villages Noa, Pierre-Muteba, Tshabula, Kadiabyula, Kazembe-Lukwesa, Ngonga, Kalulu and many others.
The provincial authorities in the region favor monetary compensation even though this practice is prohibited not only by national laws but also by international standards to which the country has freely adhered;
- The construction of the Busanga hydroelectric dam marred by irregularities, and the Luilui I, II and III dam projects without integrating the quota or the share of the populations;
In terms of the right of access to electricity, it must be said that there is stable and affordable current only for Mining Companies and a few elites in our provinces while the vast majority of the Population does not have access. to electrical energy.
Our Organizations consider that 63 years after the independence of the DRC, the Congolese Authorities should not launch energy projects without taking into account the obligation to electrify neighboring communities or secure even in private projects the energy quota for domestic customers. We ask your Excellency to ensure that the Busanga, Luilu I, II and III energy projects and the future energy projects define a clear quota for the electrification of domestic customers and local populations to the energy projects in particular.
For BUSANGA in particular, our organizations have been denouncing without success since 2018 the imbalance between the DRC’s contributions to the project and future dividends, they underline the suspicious role of the private company Congo Mangement which represents the interests of the State.
- FATSHI CITY project a desired modernization for the city and the inhabitants of Kolwezi, but executed in violation of our laws;
Furthermore, the demolition of homes for the expansion of roads, the dispossession of plots in the Musompo village for the modernization of the town of Kolwezi via the so-called “FATSHI CITY” project seems to be perceived in public opinion as an authoritarian drift. because the Province of Lualaba proceeds through a sort of arbitrariness and imposition without any prior negotiation and by using the security services against a defenseless population.
- Subnational revenues from the extractive sector which fail to drive development
Mr. President of the Republic, five years since the revision of the mining code, it is almost impossible to trace just one project financed by the mining fund for future generations. Rather, we see the establishment of a budget-intensive public establishment which risks consuming a significant part of these revenues in its implementation in the country, to the detriment of the main objective of the legislator.
There are mining companies in the region that have neither negotiated nor signed specifications with the communities, in violation of the law. For those who have done so, implementation is slow and public monitoring to force them to do so seems almost absent in the eyes of the impacted communities.
The mining royalty which should also boost local development seems to be fragmented to the detriment of the beneficiaries. We see more expenses linked to the rehabilitation and equipment of the administrative offices of those responsible for ETDs than investments for projects of community interest.
In addition, the current approach of the national government to make a reduction of a percentage on the 15% of the mining royalty reserved for decentralized territorial entities for the benefit of victims of sexual violence is proof that the National Government seems not to measure the degree of harm suffered by populations impacted by mining activities.
From the above and without being exhaustive, our organizations ask your Excellency to ensure that the government works to provide positive responses to the populations.
Mr. President of the Republic, we reiterate our welcome and ask:
- The effective restoration of State Authority in the sector to bring order and formalize the artisanal mining sector;
- A moratorium to put an end to forced evictions;
- A moratorium for the signing and execution of specifications by all companies concerned;
- The definition and determination of a precise quota in the various energy projects under construction and future to secure demand from domestic customers;
- Transparency in negotiations with SICOMINES and the capitalization of the work conclusions of Congolese civil society on this project for consideration;
- Publication of contracts between the government and the companies TFM and Glencore;
- The revision of the SICOHYDRO contract to promote the republic’s contributions to the BUSANGA project;
- And finally the definition and implementation of the vision of the Congolese State regarding the exploitation, processing and marketing of copper and cobalt ores in this context of energy transition.
End.
