Democratic Republic of Congo

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European Parliament backs Publish What You Pay rules; sends strong signal to the European Commission

LONDON/STRASBOURG – Publish What You Pay, the global coalition of civil society groups, welcomes the European Parliament’s endorsement on Tuesday of plans for EU laws that will require oil, gas and mining companies to be more

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Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Democratic Republic of Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo might be one of the world’s richest countries in natural resources, but its population ranks among the poorest with four out of five citizens living on less than 30 cents a day.

Today for the first time, the G8 endorsed mandatory disclosure of extractive industry payments to governments.

We are representatives of Southern African civil society organisations that are members of the Publish What You Pay (PWYP)* global coalition, which campaigns for the transparent and accountable management of oil, gas and mining revenues. We welcome the recent Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Heads of State Summit in Kinshasa, and we congratulate the Democratic Republic of Congo on being granted chairmanship of the SADC for a year.

The SADC region has abundant mineral resources which can assist in accelerating the economic and social development and growth of the region.

PWYP welcomes the release on bail on 20 August of Golden Misabiko, President of the African Association for the Protection of Human Rights in Katanga province (ASADHO/Katanga) and a member of Publish What You Pay (PWYP) in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Secretary Clinton,

Publish What You Pay (PWYP), the international civil society coalition for transparency and accountability in the extractive industries, is writing to draw your attention to the continued harassment of transparency and anticorruption advocates in Africa and the need for African governments to respect their commitments to encourage public debate on these issues.

Golden Misabiko, Chair of the African Association for the Protection of Human Rights (ASADHO) in Katanga, was arrested on 24 July and remains in custody in Lubumbashi. Timothée Mbuya, Vice-Chair of ASADHO/Katanga, was also arrested on 24 July but subsequently released on the same day. ASADHO is a member of Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Democratic Republic of Congo.

Both men were interrogated in Lubumbashi by members of the Congolese intelligence agency (Agence nationale de renseignements, ANR). Misabiko has been charged with “undermining State security” and “making defamatory statements” and is awaiting trial.

On the occasion of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s two-day tour of Africa on 26-27 March 2009, PWYP Africa and PWYP France have called on the French leader to ensure France does more to increase transparency, enable a fairer sharing of resources between companies and producing countries, and to respect its commitment to accountability in the management of natural resource revenues.

The French President is visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo-Brazzaville, and Niger on his fifth tour of Afr