This meeting organised in Lubumbashi/Katanga aims at “demonstrating the political will” of the government in reforming the mining sector in a way that “puts an end to the paradox which sees huge mining potential, and ever more intense mining activity, but only modest benefits for the state” since it has “negative consequences for the improvement of the population's living conditions”.
Again, I am very disappointed by this speech. The meeting organisation itself is estimated at $ 800,000 from the Congolese taxpayers and this is just to “demonstrate political will” leaving everybody, including the president, raising the question of implementation.
In his ten years of rule President Kabila has initiated through his government several actions to clean up the mining sector, in vain! Again, in this meeting he has suggested decisions that sound good to the participants (or maybe not) but nobody can really tell what has informed these decisions. His Minister of employment, Mr Modeste Bahati Lukwebo said: "We have to put an end to all of that, they are just adventurers. What we've got to do is invite the big mining and oil companies, then everyone will know who they are". Is that a valid reason to choose who invests in the DRC? Will those companies risk investing in the Congo with all the problems we have?
Most of the problems of the mining sector in the Congo come from the Congolese government itself. In an old publication (available on request through the comment box), I analysed the problems of the mining sector in the DRC with a particular focus on the resource cursed South Kivu and its opaque gold mining industry, and proposed some solutions to the problem. This is to say I am intimate with this debate.
Most countries that currently depend heavily on natural resource rents or have the potential of doing so are characterised as being on one of several developmental trajectories. Whilst some countries appear to have worked out a path to relative prosperity, others have suffered from decades of poor governance, conflict, and impoverishment and appear to be on the downward spiral that typifies the conventional understanding of the resource curse. In the DRC, mining represents a critical sector for the development of the country. The mining sector has dominated the DRC’s economy since the early 1920s (World Bank, 2010).
The promise of riches from the mining sector is massive.
However, the extraction of these natural resources can disappoint if this is not properly managed. Political unrest can also render resource-producing and-consuming areas vulnerable to extreme commodity price volatility and supply uncertainty. The civil wars in the DRC did not only affect its citizens but also destabilised States thorough the continent particularly those which have been drawn into its civil wars in recent years. To some extent, peace has returned to most part of the country and the Government is facing significant challenges to re-establish industrial production and bring order to the artisanal and small scale mining sector. This is more needed in the South Kivu region where competition for minerals among mining companies, armed groups and indivisuals has been fuelling conflicts and violence with mining companies obtaining concessions to extract gold in the region.So, what should we do?
In the current DRC’s governance system, non-state and state actors collude for profit to the detriment of local communities and the central government. In its current form, the governance system does not provide a suitable framework for the mining sector to fulfil its poverty reducing potential. At the same time, informal and sometimes illegal practices, such as illegal taxation of the sector, remains ubiquitous. This provides operational and economic space for unsavory elements, which has adverse consequences for the security situation in mining zones.
The governance system thus requires reform. While the proliferation of stakeholders means that trust building - one of the central pillars of governance reform – is a challenge, it is essential to identify champions on the local, provincial, national and international level, with the aim of building multi-stakeholder platform for change. For a reform process to stand a chance of success, the state institutions’ capacities need to increase, so as to effectively regulate and provide assistance to all the stakeholders involved. The mining companies have to accept their responsibility and support a governance reform process.
Whatever the model chosen, there is an urgent need to decentralise the mining sector, particularly the inspections, budgeting, human resource and leave only the negotiation to be conducted at the national level, provided that these negotiations are open and transparent. There is a need to separate between the local government representative and the local community representative, preferably with the traditional authority being seen as the government authority and true grassroots leadership organised to check and balance what the traditional authority does. Disambiguation between provincial ministries and divisions should be removed and clarify the roles of the organs involved, particularly with regard to the mining inspections and the roles of each organs. The establishment of a platform involving all key stakeholders is desirable as it would allow them to air their interests.
If I was the president of the Democratic republic of the Congo, or a member of its government with this question in my portfolio, this is what I would have said in the conference, and not limit myself to “demonstrating some political will” and not knowing where, when and how somebody not yet identified would actually propose and implement changes. These uninformed affirmations are just increasing on the insecure climate of investment in the mining sector in the DRC and will certainly not attract the "big mineral and oil companies" expected by the Minister of Labor.
