Gécamines (www.Gecamines.cd) makes public, this Wednesday 28 November 2018, on the occasion of an international press conference organized in Kinshasa, a report entitled: “Truth about the lies of NGOs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – Or how under cover of morality, one would like to deprive the country from its sovereignty over its raw materials”.
Download the infographic: http://bit.ly/2zwIKv3
Gécamines wants, once and for all, to bring a detailed and documented answer to various publications of several NGOs, among which Global Witness, Carter Center and more recently Enough Project, and in particular to outrageous and systematic inculpatory allegations made towards Gécamines and the DRC.
By publishing this report, and making it available online, Gécamines is informing national and international public opinion on the reality of facts.
The document is divided into three parts:
Answers provided point that:
In fact, Gécamines explains how, on the good advice of “partners of the development”, the company that was a flagship of the African mining industry has been plundered, its main assets and deposits having been transferred to foreign mining groups. It is how more than 33 million of tons of copper have been transferred to foreign partners, leaving Gécamines with only 400.000 tons.
The report abundantly explains how the system implemented by multinational companies of the sector aims at depriving Gécamines and the DRC from the benefits of its projects, by under-evaluating the results of the project companies in the DRC, while these multinationals are at the same time announcing record profits on financial markets. In total, the loss of revenue for Gécamines and the DRC amounts, as of today, based on the projections provided at the time by these same international partners, to USD 4.9 billion between 2005 and 2016. Given the challenges at stake, the audits conducted by Gécamines must proceed.
It is how the relevant NGOs take offence of Gécamines’ exercise of its contractual rights on the occasion of large lucrative change of control transactions between foreign mining groups, without having taken into account national interests, while these battles have systematically allowed to assert the rights of the DRC and of Gécamines, achieving very satisfactory results such as the TFM and Glencore matters, unanimously welcomed.
Gécamines does not intend to remain silent in front of allegations patently designed to serve the same interests that, around the world, are not welcoming these developing countries that made the legitimate choice to regain their natural resources and impose a better sharing of the revenues between the investors and the host countries, which are only calling for an increase of their own resources to conduct their development policy and reduce their dependency on conditional foreign aid.
This debate evidently goes beyond the specific situation of Gécamines and of the DRC. It is the first challenge posed to all mining countries of the African continent that can no longer glorify themselves and continue to beg for international assistance while the recovery and the correct use of only a part of the richness derived from their subsoil would radically change things.
The full report can be downloaded on: www.Gecamines.cd/rapport.html
The video “Gécamines” fight for the sovereignty of raw materials in DR Congo” is available on: bit.ly/2Q1yg0M
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Gécamines.
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