In Congo, fighting gold smuggling with transparency

Generally, most of the gold mined in eastern Congo is smuggled across the border to Rwanda. Primera Gold, a joint venture between Congo and the United Arab Emirates, aims to make the gold trade more transparent.

According to Benjamin Bisimwa, the assistant to Primera Gold's managing director, almost a ton of gold is smuggled across the border each month and only 34 kilograms (ca. 75 pounds) were officially declared for export in 2022. Within months of launching its operations, Primera Gold had officially exported 1 ton of gold.

This worker is pouring liquid gold into a mold. A finished ingot weighs roughly 2 kilograms and is worth more than €110,000 (ca. $117,000). A spectrometer found the purity to be 96.8%, making it one of the purest golds in the world according to industry experts.

Primera Gold has said it wants to improve working conditions for miners. The idea is also to provide health insurance, but so far there has been little progress. Miners continue to work in precarious conditions without satisfactory safety equipment, sometimes even going barefoot.

There is support for the company's ambitions in Congo, but also skepticism. Blaise Bubala, a representative of civil society in the region, said "there is still a big question mark." Although the state owns 45% of Primera Gold, there is some doubt as to whether the money will really flow back into poor communities that lack schools, roads and hospitals.

Primera Gold has admitted that it still has a long way to go regarding the safety of miners, but company spokesman Bisimwa has promised that challenges will be met together. One positive sign: a major raid on illegal gold trading in the region on May 1.