Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - “Golden Opportunity or False Hope?” This is the title of the report presented by the CAFOD (Catholic Agency For Overseas Development, agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales), on the upcoming opening of a gold mine run by a South African company in the town of Mongbwalu, in Ituri, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The document includes contributions from Fr. Alfred Buju, Chairman of the Justice and Peace Commission in the Diocese of Bunia.
The report predicts new growth in world demand for metals, after the break caused by the global financial crisis. This, the document stresses, has positive aspects (creation of jobs, increase government revenues, the transfer of technical skills) and negative ones (pollution, social divisions), especially in countries like the DRC, unable to “regulate the behavior of transnational firms operating in their territory.”
As a result, “mining places poor communities around the world side by side with its most powerful companies. Making their voice heard and getting companies to listen is a desperately unequal struggle,” the report says.
In the case of the contract for mining in Mongbwalu, the local people were not consulted in any manner whatsoever. “Mongbwalu is characterised by poverty and unemployment and is in desperate need of development. Community expectations about the benefits that the new mine could bring are very high. We are concerned that the mine will employ a relatively small number of workers, many of whom will have to be highly skilled, so there may be few employment opportunities for local people,” the document says. These present major concerns for environmental damage from mining activities (“one of the most environmentally damaging industries in the world,” stresses the document), involving the use of toxic substances (such as cyanide) and the production of large deposits of slag.
The report proposes a series of measures to follow in order to reduce environmental impact, create job opportunities, and to reinvest a portion of the mine's profits in developing the local economy. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 29/01/2010)
