Withdrawal of certain oil blocks from calls for tenders: “request of United States can only be taken into account following equivalent consideration” (Patrick Muyaya)

Communication and Media Minister Patrick Muyaya responded to Washington’s request calling on the Democratic Republic of Congo to renounce the auctioning of oil blocks located in sensitive areas.

For the spokesman of the Congolese government, this request can only be taken into account following an equivalent counterpart because the country is committed to meeting the needs of the population. A task that requires colossal resources. He also specified that a Congolese-American working committee has been set up to rule on this subject. 

“We must not remain on this posture which requires Congo to withdraw six blocks. It was invited at the end of the arrival of the American Secretary of State that we are going to set up a working committee between the governments of the DRC and American to decide on this subject. If the American government tells us that we want you to withdraw these six blocks by offering us an equivalent counterpart, so much the better. They must reassure us of those that we need to meet the needs of our populations. All these questions must be raised in this context,” said Patrick Muyaya. 

And to continue: 

“In the term Country-solution, as much as we must be a solution for the world, we must also be one for ourselves. If through technology, we have found that it is possible to exploit oil in the park without damaging the ecosystem, why wouldn’t we do it?”

US Special Envoy John Kerry said during his visit to Kinshasa on the sidelines of a climate meeting that Washington had asked the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to abandon the auctioning of oil blocks located in sensitive areas.

The Congolese government launched calls for tenders for 30 oil and gas blocks at the end of July, drawing criticism from environmental organizations. They argue that oil exploitation in the forests and peatlands of the Congo Basin risked releasing large amounts of carbon.

The United States has asked Kinshasa to remove some “to protect the forest”, said John Kerry during a press briefing. 

The former US Secretary of State believed that it was possible to create jobs and economic development without endangering environmentally sensitive areas such as peat bogs.

Some 30 billion tonnes of carbon are stored across the Congo Basin, the equivalent of three years of global emissions, according to a scientific study published in 2016.

The Congolese government has assured that strict environmental standards will be applied for oil exploitation in a country which, it underlines, needs oil revenues to fight against the poverty of the population.

Three quarters of the more than 90 million inhabitants of the DRC live below the poverty line, although the country’s subsoil is full of minerals such as gold, copper and cobalt.