Mining royalties: Makuta ya maendeleo and AFREWATCH welcome the decree but flag its gaps

The Makuta ya Maendeleo consortium and the organisation AFREWATCH welcome the Prime Minister’s signing of Decree No. 22/20 of 13 May 2022, which sets out how the share of mining royalties paid to provinces and decentralised territorial entities (ETDs) is to be collected, distributed, managed and controlled. Partly answering civil society’s calls, the text clarifies how the royalty is shared when a mining project straddles several provinces or ETDs, or where urban ETDs overlap. It also cancels the earlier provincial agreements on the 15% share allocated to ETDs in Haut-Katanga, Lualaba, Haut-Uélé and Kasaï Oriental, and strengthens transparency, oversight and accountability.

The two organisations regret, however, that the signed version dropped two measures that stakeholders had adopted unanimously at an EITI workshop in October 2021: precise rules governing how provinces and ETDs must use the funds, and a provincial solidarity fund for ETDs with no mining activity of their own. Government experts deemed them contrary to the Constitution and to the financial autonomy of these entities. Yet, the authors recall, the lack of clear guidance on the purpose of the royalty has long allowed the money to cover institutions’ running costs rather than the basic community infrastructure required by the Mining Code, as EITI and NGO reports have confirmed.

The consortium and AFREWATCH fear that this vagueness will worsen the misuse of funds to the benefit of provincial and local managers. They stress that the legal framework must guarantee not only better collection but also efficient, transparent and accountable spending, all the more so since Article 242 of the Mining Code was not clearly retained after the 2018 revision. The two organisations therefore pledge to keep mobilising stakeholders until rules are adopted that reserve the royalty solely for community-interest projects at provincial and local level.