The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) mine registry has accused the World Bank of trying to gain control of the country’s rich resources on Wednesday.
”Parts of your e-mail sent to the head of the office of the mining minister are a dishonour to you and represent a scandal on the scale of Watergate,” said the letter signed by the head of the mining registry, Ambroise Mbaka Kwaya Swana, referring to a message sent by World Bank consultant Paolo de Sa asking that the mining registry’s activities be ”blocked”.
De Sa reportedly said in his e-mail: ”I would be grateful if the [mining] minister would sign no more documents relating to registration of mines and if no contracts for personnel at the mining registry be signed.”
De Sa was part of a team, including members of the then DRC government, led by a World Bank consultant, that took part in preliminary work leading to the creation of the mining registry, which was set up in July 2000 but only began registering mining land in May last year.
According to Mbaka, the World Bank preferred using a tender procedure to appoint the directors of the mining registry, rather than nominating them. He said the bank threatened to cut off funding to the DRC’s mining sector if it did not get its way.
”The mining registry is a public establishment and its organisation and operations are defined by presidential decree. It should not be confused with a cooperation project,” Mbaka said in his letter, adding that in its first 12 months of activity, it had registered ”an impressive” number of new requests for what he called ”mining plots”.
The DRC was embroiled until April last year in a five-year war that, at its height, drew in at least six other African countries, left the economy and infrastructure in ruins and claimed about 2,5-million lives.
United Nations reports have spoken of the systematic pillaging of the country’s mineral wealth by players in the war.
President Joseph Kabila, who took over after his father was assassinated in January 2001, travelled to four European countries in February to urge investors to return to the vast country, which is rich in gold, silver, diamonds, copper, cobalt, zinc and uranium. — Sapa-AFP