Miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo are seeking a \u200cdelay to a government directive requiring them to grant a 5% equity stake to Congolese employees, while unions are pushing for immediate enforcement ahead of a July 31 deadline, according to a document and three industry sources.<\/p>\n
No \u200bcompany has yet complied with the directive, a union leader said, even as authorities \u200bstep up efforts to enforce local participation in a sector dominated by foreign \u2060investors. Congo is\u00a0the world’s top cobalt\u00a0producer and second-largest copper producer.<\/p>\n
African governments\u00a0are increasingly seeking a \u200blarger share of mineral wealth as commodity\u00a0prices rise, with Congo’s rule reinforcing an existing legal provision.<\/p>\n
MINERS \u200bREQUEST MORATORIUM<\/strong><\/p>\n A January 30 circular, seen by Reuters this month, requires miners to allocate the 5% stake to Congolese workers and submit proof of compliance.<\/p>\n Congo’s Chamber of Mines says key questions remain unresolved, including whether existing shareholders must \u200btransfer equity and whether the requirement applies retroactively to long-established operations, a mining executive and two \u200bunion leaders said.<\/p>\n The sources requested anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to media.<\/p>\n Major miners including Eurasian \u200cResources Group, \u2060Ivanhoe, Glencore\u00a0and China’s CMOC\u00a0met the chamber on June 11 to coordinate a response, the executive said. Glencore and Ivanhoe declined to comment, while CMOC and ERG did not immediately respond.<\/p>\n The chamber has formally requested a moratorium to allow consultations with stakeholders, though no alternative timeline has been \u200bproposed, the executive added.<\/p>\n “This \u200bconcern is widely shared \u2060by major companies,” the executive said, adding many were still awaiting clarity on the final framework.<\/p>\n Congo’s mines ministry and Chamber of Mines did not \u200bimmediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n MINES MINISTRY TO MEET UNIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n Congo’s mines ministry \u200bwill meet \u2060unions on Friday to “explain more” on the directive, one union leader said.<\/p>\n Unions accuse mining companies of dragging their feet.<\/p>\n A second union leader said miners had previously allocated about 3% to worker-linked schemes, but that oversight \u2060of \u200bthe funds lacked transparency.<\/p>\n “That is why the government wants them \u200bto increase it to 5%,” the second source said, adding it could support development in mining regions.<\/p>\n “On the union side, \u200bwe are demanding immediate implementation.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo are seeking a \u200cdelay to a government directive requiring them to grant a 5% equity stake to Congolese employees, while unions are pushing for immediate enforcement ahead of a July 31 deadline, according to a document and three industry sources. No \u200bcompany has yet complied with the directive, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,3028],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-21167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-mining","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21169,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21167\/revisions\/21169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}