Mineral trafficking in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has been documented by various NGO and UN reports. According to the US Treasury, more than 90% of the gold produced in the DRC is thus smuggled through neighboring countries, first and foremost Rwanda and Uganda.
The profits of tons of gold, but also tungsten, tantalum, or tin would be lost by the Democratic Republic of Congo because of the illegal trafficking of minerals in the east of the country. A shortfall that the Congolese Minister of Finance, Nicolas Kazadi, estimated, in an interview with the Financial Times earlier this week, at one billion dollars per year. And for the latter, neighboring Rwanda would be the big beneficiary of this traffic.
“It is difficult to know how much crosses through illegal channels, explains Jacques Mukena, governance, and economics specialist at the Congolese Institute for Research on Politics, Governance, and Violence. These are just estimates based on exports from Rwanda and Uganda.
In fact, in the DRC there is no gold refinery, but there is a gold refineries in Rwanda and Uganda. It is based on the export of these refineries that we can know more or less the quantity that these two countries export. This does not correspond to their local production. It gives indicators. This is a real shortfall for the DRC, confirms the expert in any case.