Kinshasa (AFP)

Visiting the mining El Dorado of Katanga, the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Félix Tshisekedi, announced his intention to renegotiate mining contracts, in particular those concluded with China by his predecessor Joseph Kabila, a revision promised in the name of the Congolese who "are still languishing in misery".

"It is not normal that those with whom the country has signed mining contracts get richer while our populations remain poor," Thisekedi said Thursday, during a visit to the mining town of Kolwezi.

"It is time for the country to readjust its contracts with the miners to seal win-win partnerships," he said during a meeting in the city center, acclaimed by thousands of residents.

"I have really had enough! (...) I am very severe with these investors who come to get rich on their own. They come with empty pockets and leave as billionaires", lambasted the head of state.

- "In the pocket!"

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"It is also our fault. Some of our compatriots had badly negotiated the mining contracts. Worse, the little which returns to the State, they put it in their own pockets", he accused, promising to to make "great Katanga, the entire Congo (...) the world capital of strategic minerals".

Arrived the day before in Lubumbashi, the capital of Haut-Katanga, he had already vilified the mining investors in the region who "stole too much from us", who "are getting richer and richer" while the Congolese "continue to languish in the misery".

Katanga is home to immense mineral wealth, including cobalt, copper, uranium, ... in a country often described as a "geological scandal" as its subsoil is full of wealth.

Under colonization, then independence with the public company Gécamines, the region has always contributed more than 50% of the national budget, and almost all exports.

The bankruptcy of Gécamines in the 1990s was synonymous with the collapse of the country's economy.

Foreign mining investors arrived en masse in Katanga in the 2000s (during the "mining boom"), as the successive sales of Gécamines deposits were made, but without ever having the slightest impact on the daily life of 90 million Congolese, for the Most left to fend for themselves and to fend for themselves by a failed state, while the DRC remains the 8th poorest country on the planet.

About forty mining companies operate in Katanga today, including the giants Gécamines and Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFP).

About thirty are Chinese or predominantly Chinese.

For the daily Le Potentiel, there is no doubt that Mr. Tshisekedi's words during his visit to Katanga are aimed primarily at the Chinese partner.

He thus begins "a standoff with China over contracts with Kabila", while the DRC, "once a major ally" of Beijing, "has now moved closer to the United States".

- "No anti-Chinese plan" -

Elected in December 2018, Tshisekedi broke in December 2020 the coalition he formed with the Kabila camp, after two and a half years of co-management of the country.

In power from 2001 to 2019, Mr. Kabila had negotiated in 2008 a contract in the form of barter (cobalt and copper against the construction of infrastructure) with a Chinese consortium for an amount of 9 billion dollars, renegotiated at 6 billion under pressure from the IMF.

To date, nearly 2.74 billion have been disbursed by the Chinese side, mainly in the form of investments.

"There is no anti-Chinese plan (...)", moderates a source in the presidency, questioned the day after these statements, "we are not in the optics of a standoff with our partners (...), who have the benefit of the doubt ".

In any case, nothing more was needed to relaunch the great game of the great powers around the Congolese chessboard.

On May 6 on Twitter, Ambassador Peter Pham, a key figure in US diplomacy on the continent, greeted with a “Bravo!” An article in the Africa Intelligence magazine revealing this upcoming renegotiation of Chinese contracts in Katanga.

"The DRC and Africa must not be the battleground of the powers. Let us be vigilant to those who cry out for fighting and seek to create hostility," the Chinese ambassador in the country commented on Friday on Twitter, Zhu Jing.

This is when President Tshisekedi spoke on the phone on May 7 with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

"This concerns all miners, but in fact the Chinese today have a dominant place in the sector," explains the source to the Congolese presidency.

"We can expect discussions with all the miners in the coming months," warns this source.

And "it will be done in a methodical way, in accordance with the roadmap laid down by the president".

© 2021 AFP