The writer is an editor at The New Times.
OPINION
Kigali is playing host to a summit of stakeholders in the mining sector from across the world, and Rwandan businesses are keenly involved as players in this global business.
Local traders say they have for years been treated unfairly in the global minerals chain, with unfounded suspicion, and were determined to make their case at the conference.
The Sixth Responsible Mineral Supply Chains summit is seeking solutions to the perpetual problem of the so-called ‘conflict minerals’ to ensure that dealers and end-users do not end up financing bloody conflicts in the region – knowingly or otherwise.
Reports, year in, year out, by such groups as the UN Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have previously alleged that Rwanda was a major transit for illicit minerals from the Congo.
This is despite the evident efforts that have been made by Kigali and local mining industry to make the sector as transparent as possible.
Rwanda was the first country in the region to implement the so-called mineral tagging and traceability scheme, otherwise known as ITSCi, which was imposed pursuant to an order by US President Barack Obama instructing American companies to steer clear of ‘conflict minerals’.
And, once again, just this month, Rwanda became the first country in the region to issue a certificate for export of minerals within a separate framework spearheaded by the twelve-nation International Conference for the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR).
These efforts are being made, understandably, because Rwanda happens to be a producer of the kind of minerals in question; namely, cassiterite, wolframite, and tantalum. Most of these concessions are owned by multi-national companies across the country.
Most of the reports suggest that Rwanda’s mining industry thrives on ill-acquired ‘stones’ from the neighbouring DRC.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The least these hundreds of delegates at the mining summit in Kigali can do for the hardworking industry players in Rwanda is to acknowledge the important steps this country has taken – more than any other country in the region or anywhere else in the world – to make its mining sector open, transparent and predictable.
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