Over 75% of gold mining sites in Ituri are controlled by armed groups, worth millions of US dollars (Civil Society Report)
More than 3/4 of mining sites in Ituri province are controlled by armed groups. The latter exploit the gold and cause millions of American dollars to escape from the Congolese State. This is what the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations of Haut-Uélé and Ituri denounces for the governance of natural resources in its latest report published in August 2022.
Civil society is concerned about the activism of armed groups in eastern DRC who continue to expand and consolidate their positions in mining areas in full view of the politico-administrative and military authorities.
“Letting these armed groups operate and exploit gold would be a sign of sabotage of the authority of the State, as what these groups would say the Congolese State does not exist”, denounces the civil society in its report.
Political-administrative and military authorities accused of complicity
Jimmy Munguriek, member of the EITI-DRC Executive Committee, calls on the authorities to take more responsibility in order to put an end to the occupation of armed groups in gold mining sites.
“We can conclude that there is a network that would involve different levels. There is in this network of administration personnel, it is a presumption. Because we cannot understand that the law provides for all the services who have to end up in the mineral supply chain and they all don’t know what’s really going on. That’s why you’ll notice that we are exposing illegal exploitation in the presence of all these services. should we think of a complicity of these services? Should we think of the innocence of these services? That is why we have asked the ministries to seek to know the responsibility of their agents on the ground in relation to all that is happening,” he said.
He also denounced the securing of illegal artisanal mining areas by the military.
“In most cases, illegal logging is done under the cover of the military. That is, the authorities are aware because a military cannot get lost to ensure the safety of a Artisanal Exploitation Zone (ZEA) of itself”, he denounced.
Therefore, the coalition recommends to:
To the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Environment as well as the Minister of Mines : issue an inter-ministerial decree obliging artisanal miners to rehabilitate the environment destroyed by the facts of exploitation.
To the National Minister of Mines : – Establish viable ZEAs in the two provinces after technical field surveys and assign them to mining cooperatives legally constituted and respectful of mining legislation; – Stop all work of cooperatives operating in violation of Congolese mining law.
To the Minister of Justice : – Order the courts of the provinces of Haut-Uélé and Ituri to initiate legal action against defaulting operators in accordance with Articles 299 to 311 of the Mining Code.
To the Minister of Defence : – Take appropriate measures for the effective cessation of the activism of armed groups in the province of Ituri in general and mining sites in particular
