Kinshasa | Sunday
FRAUD in the diamond industry drains the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of $400-million (449 million euros) a year, Mines and Hydrocarbons Minister Simon Tumawako said on Saturday.
Tumawako said the lost income amounted to about two thirds of the nation’s potential revenue from diamonds.
He was speaking at a ceremony to mark the DRC joining the so-called Kimberley Process, an international system designed to stamp out trade in illegal “blood diamonds”, which finances certain conflicts.
The process works by establishing minimum standards for the national certification of imports and exports of rough diamonds.
The authorities in the vast DRC, which is divided by a four-year war, have obtained Belgian and South African support for purchasing diamond verification and certification equipment.
The aim of the move, Tumawako said, was to counter the looting of diamond resources in the east of the country by DRC rebel factions and their allies from Rwanda and Uganda.
“The efforts in hand stem from concerns raised by the UN General Assembly, which passed a resolution in 2000 on measures to clean up diamond trading in international markets,” the minister said.
The Kigali and Kampala governments have denied the substance of a report by UN investigators, released last November, detailing the “illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth” in the DRC.
The UN panel, which did not call for punitive measures, blamed all sides, saying that several government ministries in Kinshasa were actively involved with companies operating in rebel areas.
The DRC is the fourth country to sign up to the Kimberley Process, following Angola, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
“We hope that countries bordering on the DRC will no longer serve as transit zones for diamonds looted in war,” Tumawaku said, speaking a day after the inconclusive end of marathon DRC peace talks hosted by South Africa.
Saturday’s ceremony, at a Kinshasa hotel, was attended by representatives of the Kimberley Process and of the Diamond High Council (HRD), a non-profit organisation based in Antwerp, Belgium, a key diamond trading centre.
The director general of the DRC’s Centre for Evaluation, Expertise and Certification for precious and semi-precious minerals (CEEC), Victor Kasongo Shomari, said the CEEC would also work to fight fraud.
Other government officials and managerial staff from state firms and private companies also attended the ceremony.
Eight weeks of tortuous negotiations on the political future of the DRC ended in South Africa on Friday with a power-sharing agreement between the Kinshasa government and one of the key rebel group active in the country.
But while the pact was endorsed by many of the 360 delegates to the talks in Sun City, it was rejected by the Rwandan-backed rebels of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), raising fears that the conflict could resume, with changed alliances.
The war began with an insurgency in August 1998 against the late president Laurent Kabila. Rebel groups who now hold about half the country are being backed by Rwanda and Uganda, while Angola and Zimbabwe still have troops in the DRC supporting the government. – AFP