Congo-Kinshasa: Resource-Rich DRC Losing U.S.$1.3 Billion Every Year in Unpaid Taxes – by James Anyanzwa (All Africa.com – September 8, 2017)

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The Democratic Republic of Congo is losing up to $1.3 billion in revenue each year due to a failure by public bodies, tax agencies and the state mining firm Gécamines to remit levies, and the pillage of revenue in suspicious deals.

The DRC tops the list of African countries whose resources are being plundered. Zimbabwe, Mauritania, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan and Eritrea have also featured in the complex corruption web in the production and sale of commercial crude oil, natural gas and minerals amounting to trillions of dollars in revenue.

Investigations by London-based lobby Global Witness have found more than $750 million of DRC’s revenue earned from mining went missing between 2013 and 2015, as the Kinshasa administration struggled with providing public services to the people.

Corruption and mismanagement

Global Witness said the state-owned mining company and tax agencies held back from the Congolese national Treasury $149 million in 2013, $314 million in 2014 and $291 million in 2015.

Corruption and mismanagement of revenue agencies and Gécamines are leaching over a fifth of proceeds from the national budget as President Joseph Kabila clings to power at a time of political unrest, Global Witness notes.

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