The DRC is trying to regulate the sale of artisanal cobalt

2023-08-09 22:02:46

The country produces more than 70% of the world’s cobalt. While most of this ore is extracted from giant industrial mines in eastern DRC, 10-20% comes from the artisanal sector. In Lualaba province, the government has launched a project to try to regulate the supply chain. A critical sector on which weigh accusations of child labor, dangerous working conditions, corruption. Behind the scenes report on the regulation of artisanal cobalt.

From our special correspondent in Kolwezi,

All along the road that leads to Kolwezi, dilapidated deposits, where sacks of ore are piled up. These are purchase deposits. The prices of cobalt and copper are written on boxes, canvas bags hung on the wall. Many artisanal miners complain regarding the lack of transparency.

« Here there is a real problem of balance and content. Before, for ten bags, we earned 100,000 francs CFA (152,22 euros). Today, it is only 30,000 CFA francs (45.67 euros), complains an artisanal digger. The Chinese say that prices have fallen, but the scale is a robot, it does not move. »

A few kilometers away, the government is building a new trading center: Musompo 2. Sheds, counters and a laboratory. A set supposed to eliminate intermediaries by storing and testing the ore on behalf of the diggers, explains Willy Yav, manager of the center. “ What happens is that you have young people, old people, women, children who take pickaxes, shovels to get out the ore, which they sell to traders who I call mafiosos who buy low price, rig their testing equipment… Anything that establishes the value of the product and buys the product back at a third, a quarter, sometimes even a fifth of its true value “, details the manager of the center.

Read alsoDRC: “Cobalt, the other side of the electric dream” or the hidden face of its exploitation

Musompo 2 will also be equipped with a certification center. The law requires artisanal miners to work in government-designated areas and to be members of approved cooperatives. But this law is not enforced. And most diggers work in illegal mines, sometimes even on concessions held by multinationals.

A traceability system will ensure that the ore comes from legal mines that respect human rights, explains Théo Mafo, head of the Kolwezi Mining Cooperatives Federation: “ The state gets involved because the state understands that if it does nothing, we risk being embargoed. Because otherwise buyers, like Microsoft, Apple, are scared and may sue us, warns Theo Mafo. A child who goes to work the mining product, and you buy it, it’s a crime! Therefore, it is necessary to encourage that there are good practices in the traceability of the supply chain of cobalt. »

A clean cobalt. An ambitious project, launched a few years ago by the former Minister of Mines, but which for the moment has still not materialized.

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