Willy Kitobo – Mining Minister announces publication of annotated mining code

“It’s that people need to understand what changes and innovations are. We will publish an annotated mining code where there have been changes to the articles. The annotations are added to provide further explanation of what Parliament intends for this amendment. It would become the book that you can easily use even if you don’t have someone to explain the innovation or the modification,” said Willy Kitobo.

He also explained that in order to remain in the mind of the legislator a serious documentary and cross-checking work was carried out.

“It was an exercise that cost us time, we had to go back to everything we had as documentation, all the discussions that took place during the development of the mining code so as not to lose the idea of the legislator. All the documentation and all the PVs of the code development meetings were searched so that people would have the same idea, the same understanding, of what the legislature meant. We interviewed all the people who participated in the development of this code (…) 5000 copies are available,” added Willy Kitobo.

Willy Kitobo, also announces as part of this popularization, a strong campaign in the media to publicize the mining code which he believes is an important instrument for the national economy.

It was since 09 March 2018 that Joseph Kabila, then president of the republic, had promulgated the current mining code. As a reminder, the main innovations in mining code include the increase in the taxation of strategic minerals such as cobalt and coltan, the Congolese state’s control over the sector through the increase in the quality of state participation in the social capital of mining companies and the required participation of at least 10% of the natural persons of Congolese nationality when setting up a mining company.