DR Congo's Faltering Fight Against Illegal Cobalt Mines

(@FahadShabbir)

DR Congo's faltering fight against illegal cobalt mines

Shabara, DR Congo, Nov 2 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Nov, 2022 ) :Five thousand diggers pack tightly together at the bottom of a crater in southeastern DR Congo, swinging hammers and picks to prise chunks of speckled blue-gold ore from the earth.

In this scene of almost biblical toil, the prize is cobalt, a strategic metal found in abundance in the impoverished central African nation.

But the huge pit in Shabara, about 45 kilometres (30 miles) from Kolwezi, is also emblematic of a headache.

Around 20,000 people work at the mine, in shifts of 5,000 at a time. The mining has been carrying on for years in flagrant violation of DRC laws and in defiance of the site's owner, a subsidiary of mining and commodities giant Glencore.

As the diggers gouge at blue-tinged soil, hundreds of dust-covered porters trudge up a ramp leading out of the pit, their backs bent under the weight of sacks of ore.

Marcel Kabamba, 31, taking a break amid the sounds of clanging and the shouts of his fellow diggers, said he could make the equivalent of $200 on a good week -- a small fortune in a country where most live on under $2 a day.

"We're fighting to be left in peace," he said.

According to market specialist Darton Commodities, the Democratic Republic of Congo last year produced 72 percent of the world's cobalt, a key ingredient in rechargeable batteries in electric cars and mobile phones.

But the sector's image is tarnished by artisanal mining, where accusations of child labour, dangerous working conditions and corruption are rampant.

"It's the Wild West of mining," said one industry analyst.

Under Congolese law, artisanal diggers are only allowed to work in government-designated zones and as part of approved cooperatives.

But most diggers say the designated areas are unviable.

Many prefer to operate on industrial concessions where there are large, identified deposits, even though this can lead to a showdown with powerful multi-billion-dollar corporations.

"We're not going to give in," said Michel Bizimungu Lungundu, deputy of the highly organised cooperative at Shabara known as COMAKAT, arguing that locals had the right to exploit the lucrative ore.

In 2018, the DRC enacted mining reforms aimed in part at strengthening control over the roaring cobalt trade.

The country declared the metal "strategic" and hiked taxes on industrially produced cobalt.

In 2019, as a storm over rights and working conditions mounted, it also established the state-owned Enterprise Generale du Cobalt (EGC), giving it a monopoly on buying and marketing artisanally produced ore from the designated zones.

The idea was multi-pronged: develop the artisanal sector, boost standards and profit from the trade.

"Your Teslas, Samsungs and Apples had started to balk at cobalt," said EGC's compliance and environment director, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, referring to the reputational cost of buying ore from the DRC.

"This was starting to create a real problem." Today, though, efforts to clear up the illegal mines are at near standstill.

Most diggers are refusing to move into the designated artisanal zones and EGC has yet to start buying cobalt.

"It's a mess," admitted a senior government official in Kolwezi, the capital of Lualaba province, who said Kinshasa had decided the zones seemingly at random.