2023-06-30 06:39:38
Dilapidated dumps cluttered with sacks of ore line the road to Kolwezi, the mining capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the southeast of the vast central African country.
Behind walls inscribed with “CoCu” (for “Cobalt and Copper”), traders assess the purity of ore mined by informal miners, known as “diggers”, and set a price.
But the miners, most of whom are working in dire conditions, are complaining that traders are cheating on the grade of the ore to defraud them.
“There is cheating everywhere,” says Paul Bande, 45, a digger at the Kamilombe artisanal mine near Kolwezi.
Not only do traders cheat on grade, he says, but they only pay for copper or cobalt, when the ore often contains both.
An ambitious project is taking shape in the province of Lualaba, of which Kolwezi is the capital, to try to solve this problem by creating a trading center supported by the government.
This “Musompo Trading Center” is supposed to eliminate dishonest intermediaries by storing and testing the ore on behalf of the diggers.
According to Willy Yav, director of the company SudSouth, charged by the provincial government with managing the center, it would bring more income to the miners and would contribute to restoring the image of Congolese artisanal cobalt.
A traceability and certification system, for example, would guarantee that the ore only comes from artisanal mines respecting certain rights and safety rules.
Congo produces more than 70% of the world’s cobalt, an essential metal for batteries used in electronics and electric cars.
Most Congolese cobalt is extracted from giant industrial mines, but it is estimated that more than 200,000 people work as diggers in illegal sites.
Accusations of child labor, unsafe working conditions and corruption in the artisanal sector hang over the entire cobalt industry in the DRC.
Legal issues
The country is heavily dependent on the mining industry: the sector accounted for 95% of its export earnings and around a quarter of its GDP between 2016 and 2021, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Willy Yav admits, however, that legal problems hamper the operation of the Musompo trading center, which is not yet operational.
According to Congolese law, artisanal miners are only allowed to work in areas designated by the government and must be members of approved cooperatives.
But the law is not enforced. Most diggers work outside designated areas, in shafts and tunnels dug on concessions held by multinational corporations.
If the legal issues are not resolved, law-abiding buyers will find it difficult to buy ore from Musompo.
There are other complications. For example, the role of the General Cobalt Company (EGC) of Congo, a state-owned company with a monopoly on the purchase and marketing of artisanal cobalt, is not clear.
The DRC launched the EGC in 2021 in hopes of developing the artisanal sector and influencing global cobalt prices. But the company has yet to purchase any cobalt.
Willy Yav hopes that the trading center will be able to work with the Kamilombe mine as a pilot site, which might then serve as a model for reforming the entire informal cobalt sector.
“It’s very important to fix this problem,” he says, noting that diggers will continue to invade company claims because they have families to support.
“The provincial government is very interested in cleaning up this supply chain and generating fair tax revenue,” said a critical metals specialist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also noting that legal issues complicate things.
The project is generating excitement at Kamilombe, a sprawling artisanal site with around 1,000 tunnels on a state-owned concession. Paul Bande says he is “impatiently” waiting for the center to open.
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