DRC roads: Has it something to do with blood minerals?

On paper, it is a sensible narrative. One of the poorest countries in the world, with a relatively poor road network of its own, Uganda intends to join an effort to build roads in neighbouring DR Congo.  This will improve market access and increase the volume of trade with DRC, which by 2018 figures, stood at Uganda exporting about $532m. The economic logic then follows. Increased trade, more investment in Uganda, additional employment opportunities, greater household incomes, wider tax base and further growth of the economy. Peaceful co-existence comes along with this.

As to whether it will be a happy ending, we need to interrogate the fact that reexports account for most of what Uganda sells to DRC. This means that the real beneficiaries are the countries, especially China and India, from which Uganda imports high value goods such as trucks, chemicals, paper, hardware and electrical merchandise, among others.  Uganda simply serves as a transit point and commission agent. 

In fact, the biggest players in this business are the so-called investors, people who set up shop in Uganda and import from China or India, then reexport. The proceeds are then repatriated back to their home countries. So the embellished benefits of increased trade with DRC such as growth of the economy and increased employment may not be obvious. But we give the benefit of the doubt. Half a loaf is better than none. However, the economics of the roads project should not make us lose sight of is the importance of DRC to the global economy at the moment. 

A growing trend that has seen the world economy going digital and online, which tendency has been exacerbated by Covid-19, means that the cell phones, computers, hard drives, DVD players, etc, are going to be at the centre of most of our transactions and day-to-day life activities.  

“The eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is extremely rich in Coltan (Columbite-Tantalite), a rare metallic ore used for the production of electronic goods of mass consumption, such as mobile phones, laptops and videogame consoles, whose profits have fuelled the largest conflict in modern African history.

For more than 10 years, companies in industrialised countries have purchased Coltan despite war and lawlessness in the DRC, and they became profitable sources of foreign currency for a multitude of State and non-State actors, including rebel forces, Rwandan, and Ugandan governments (and their armies), licensed companies and poor communities with no employment opportunities. The resulting power struggles over this valuable ore combined with the weakness of the Congolese State, provoked conflict and political turmoil in the country. The war in the DRC had reached a level of complexity to the point that it has been renamed the “African World War,” having involved eight African nations and 25 rebel groups and caused the highest death toll since World War II.” (Coltan and Conflict in the DRC by Edoardo Totolo for ISN Security Watch 2009). 

Now the problem is that many of the end users in the developed world such as the United States of America are finding problems accessing these minerals and sleeping comfortably anymore. Concerned human rights groups have come up with legislation to put them to account for the sources of what is known as blood or conflict minerals. 
It is cheaper to buy from unlicensed and unregulated warlords, which is akin to fishing in troubled waters. 
“The Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2010, is primarily known as the law that tries to tighten regulation of the financial services industry and improve aspects of corporate governance. 
It also requires companies to track and report the conflict minerals used in their products.” (Blood on Your Handset by Ciara Torres-Spelliscy -2013).

The four most commonly mined conflict minerals (known as 3TGs, from their initials) are cassiterite (for tin), wolframite (for tungsten), coltan (for tantalum), and gold ore, which are extracted from the eastern Congo, and passed through a variety of intermediaries before being purchased. 
The intermediaries here are countries like Uganda, which in an act akin to money laundering, clean up the conflict minerals and export them legally as the ‘country of origin’ thereby covering up the criminal track record of the minerals. 

According to Namala Doreen in the article Uganda gold exports hit three-year high after refinery hub emerges,’ ‘gold exports - Uganda’s largest foreign exchange earner, brought in $126m in May 2020 - making it the biggest foreign exchange earner. For a country without considerable gold mineral deposits, Uganda now has four gold refineries, which ship their gold from the DRC. 
So you can safely argue that by conceiving the idea of building roads into the conflict mineral areas of the Congo, the government in Kampala besides boosting exports, hits more important birds with one stone.  

First, it strengthens its credentials, significance and relevance to global capital and political power. It is a partner in the sanitising and social distancing, cheap and available conflict minerals from scrutiny from the prying eyes of the law. 

The roads will not only make it easier to transport the minerals to Uganda as a safe haven, but will also make it easier to deploy instruments of coercion just in case rebel groups opposed to looting the Congo on their own terms become an impediment. 
Besides, it will further ease the work that the Uganda government has been doing in easing the trade in Congo’s resources by quickly moving refugees from areas that are of interests to those who need to mine in peace. 

If Uganda did not have a ‘generous’ refugee policy that accommodates the Congolese fleeing conflict, these would stay in Congo, fight to the death for their land rights or at least become a resistance nuisance to investors. 
The world knows how painful the Ogoni and Ijaw have been to foreign oil corporations in the Niger Delta in Nigeria. 

Twitter: @nsengoba