Armed teams proceed to fight for preserve watch over of gold mines within the east of the Central African country, the US Authorities Accountability Place of job mentioned in its fable
Reuters
08 October, 2024, 11:00 am
Final modified: 08 October, 2024, 11:09 am
A US congressional watchdog has chanced on no proof that a 2012 Securities and Alternate Price (SEC) struggle minerals disclosure rule has reduced violence in Democratic Republic of Congo, it mentioned in a fable on Monday.
Armed teams proceed to fight for preserve watch over of gold mines within the east of the Central African country, the US Authorities Accountability Place of job mentioned in its fable.
It also mentioned the rule of thumb – which requires some firms to fable on their employ of tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold – has likely had no accomplish in neighbouring international locations.
“GAO chanced on no empirical proof that the rule of thumb has reduced the occurrence or level of violence within the jap DRC, the place many mines and armed teams are positioned,” the fable mentioned.
“GAO also chanced on the rule of thumb changed into associated to a unfold of violence, in particular around casual, small-scale gold mining sites,” it mentioned, including that gold is mainly the most sophisticated to set, and extremely most life like to smuggle, of the four minerals covered by the rule of thumb.
Congo is the realm’s high producer of tantalum, which is believed to be a significant mineral by the US and the European Union.
The fable added that “the SEC disagreed with some of GAO’s findings and raised concerns about some of its methodology and analyses.” The GAO mentioned it made distinct modifications that did not materially have an effect on its findings.
“Because the agency effectively-known in feedback shared with GAO, SEC workers has serious concerns in regards to the fable, including that it makes assertions and reaches conclusions that relaxation on several faux merely assumptions, attracts causal inferences which will likely be not supported by GAO’s statistical analyses, and deviates seriously from the GAO’s beforehand issued reports,” the SEC mentioned.
“GAO had not shared its last fable with the SEC till nowadays, so workers is reviewing it to settle if and the device in which GAO addressed the SEC’s concerns,” it added.
Final year, GAO mentioned that some US firms buying for minerals from Congo and its neighbours had been failing to meet disclosure requirements.
On Sept. 30, Bintou Keita, head of the UN mission in Congo, told the U.N. Security Council that M23 rebels within the east are producing $300,000 per month in revenues in a coltan-mining place they seized earlier this year.
