At every opportunity, The Democratic Republic of Congo will hurl accusations against Rwanda saying that the latter is plundering Congolese resources, even without any iota of evidence.

 

Just recently, President Paul Kagame dismissed such allegations and asked that they be treated with the contempt they deserve.

 

But who is stealing Congolese natural resources? The DRC is one of the most endowed countries in the world. However, the vast country finds itself at the bottom of the list of the World’s poorest countries, mainly due to its leadership vacuum.

 

A succession of regimes has failed to leverage its natural resources to change the lives of the citizens. Almost all of them – except the very few close to the regime – continue to languish in abject poverty. The DRC supplies about 70% of the World’s Cobalt, but 80% of its industrial cobalt mines are owned or financed by Chinese companies.

 

DRC owns only a quarter of its Cobalt resources. Despite the huge deposit of mineral resources, nationals only have a quarter of that specific resource to share among themselves. Consequently, this has led to conflicts among the Congolese government and domestic mining companies. 

 

According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), in 2020, DRC exported $21.1million in gold, making it the 125th largest exporter of the rare mineral in the world. During the same year, gold was the 20th most exported product in DRC. 

 

Additionally, the main destination of gold exports from DRC were; the United Arab Emirates’ $16.5 million, followed by China’s $2.45M, South Africa’s $1.6 million, Hong Kong’s $311,000, and Uganda’s $188,000. From this data, the conclusion would be that DRC could do better than that. 

 

But there are many factors that hinder the optimization of DRC mineral exploitation and the maximization of profits

 

A recent report by IMPACT, a Canadian organization that works in areas where security and human rights are at risk through research, field operations and collaboration with partners; indicated that DRC’s high taxes often pushed the price of gold beyond what the industry was willing to pay, creating a barrier to commercial viability. 

 

Additionally, it highlighted the prohibitive bureaucracy involved to be able to export gold from DRC. These administrative steps are not only complex but also ambiguous.

 

Between 2017 and 2019, while in DRC one has to pay 12 per cent to export gold, in neighboring Uganda, one only needed to pay a 5 per cent, royalty on the value of the amount mined, rather than an export tax. 

 

Consequently, DRC’s registered traders and exporters are the ones who threaten the country’s rich mining sector profitability as they often declare only a small percentage of their gold exports while pocketing massive profits from illicit trade. 

 

For years, there exist no responsible production and trade of artisanal gold in DRC. Basically, it is a mafia network from pit to export.  

 

The export of mineral resources of DRC start from the transfer of minerals between the different provinces, always executed by chattered small planes operated, not by Rwandans but other foreigners well known by DRC authorities and locals, some of whom reside in the cities under heavy security protection, offered by DRC’s government.

 

The mineral exports from the troubled country therefore takes place from different provinces and are directly taken to various countries, of the biggest exploiters of these mineral resources.

 

Yet it is hard to single out any company owned by Rwanda or linked to Rwanda. 

 

Companies such as AngloGold Ashanti, Barrick Gold Corporation (among the world’s biggest), Infinity Lithium Corp, Randgold Resources are some of the biggest mining companies in DRC. None of them is from Rwanda. 

 

The Congolese government is well aware of the companies that exploit more than three quarters of their minerals for export. The traceability of their minerals is not rocket science or a hard to hide reality.

 

Blame games will certainly not help deal with DRC’s real problems. 

 

The DRC should learn to appreciate its weaknesses and aim at finding solutions to their own problems. Blaming Rwanda for its failures can only worsen the situation.