Kinshasa, 5 November 2021 – Greenpeace Africa is outraged by the lack of professionalism and attempts at intimidation from the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MEDD) in reaction to our press release revealing the involvement of the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Environment Eve Bazaiba in the Tradelink saga.
In response to the ramblings and shameless false statements of Mr. Yves Kitumba, Chief of Staff of Ms. Bazaiba, Greenpeace Africa recaps the following facts:
On 9 June 2021, the Conseil pour la Défense Environnementale par la Légalité et Traçabilité (CODELT) and Organisation Congolaise des Ecologistes et Amis de la Nature (OCEAN) lodged an administrative appeal with Ms. Bazaiba for the cancellation of Tradelink’s six contracts. These contracts for six so-called conservation concessions, covering an area half the size of Belgium, were awarded illegally by Minister Claude Nyamugabo in September 2020.
On June 24, 2021, Greenpeace Africa wrote to Ms. Bazaiba, alerting her to our 17 June briefing on the Tradelink case.
The Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) confirmed the illegality of the company’s concessions on 29 June.
On 28 July we wrote to the Prime Minister.
While Ms. Bazaiba never bothered to reply to our correspondence, her colleague, the Minister of Regional Planning, Mr. Guy Loando, didn’t make the same choice. In a letter of 1 August 2021, he acknowledged the “relevance” of our request to the Prime Minister. He awaited the latter’s further instructions.
In a letter of 25 August to Ms. Bazaiba, the governor of Tshuapa province, called for the cancellation of the Tradelink concessions.
Civil society discussed the matter with the Prime Minister’s office in a working session on 28 September.
At the meeting of the Council of Ministers on October 15, the President of the Republic declared that he had received several complaints of irregularities in the granting of forest concessions, citing in particular those of Tradelink. He ordered Ms. Bazaiba to make a technical and financial inventory of all forest concessions in the DRC, to suspend all “dubious” contracts pending the outcome of the audit, and to report to the government at the next meeting of the Council of Ministers.
Ms. Bazaiba’s involvement in the Tradelink affair was established in October with the discovery of a mission order she signed on 13 September for seven members of her ministry to accompany a Tradelink team in the province of Tshopo. 13 September: three days after the expiration of the legal deadline to respond to the administrative appeal filed by civil society.
Mr. Kitumba’s assertion that “it was the [MEDD] team sent to the field that concluded these concessions were illegal” is thus completely ludicrous .
First, the work of the team that Ms. Bazaiba sent to the field was not in any way to assess the legality of the contracts. On the contrary, their objective, as specified in the mission order, was: “Facilitating the negotiation and signing of social clause agreements, carrying out socio-economic surveys and signing the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of the TRADELINK Company.”
Secondly: the team remained in the field until 28 October – almost two weeks after the President ordered the suspension of Tradelink concessions on 15 October. A document of the social clause was finalized during the mission and ready for signature. A printer failure prevented it from being signed.
Thirdly: according to a second mission order, issued by the provincial coordination of MEDD Tshopo, an agent of the provincial coordination acted during the mission in the function of… representative of Tradelink!
Finally, according to Ms. Bazaiba’s mission order: the mission was funded by the company.
During the Council of Ministers meeting on 22 October, “a draft order suspending the six contracts [Tradelink] was submitted for the consideration of the Council of Ministers”. If it was signed, this decree hasn’t been published on the MEDD website. And the minutes of the meeting of the 22nd present the Tradelink contracts as the only ones requiring immediate suspension. However, since 20 October, Ms. Bazaiba has had available a – non-exhaustive – list of 22 illegal concessions, drawn up by CODELT and the Network of Civil Society Organizations for the Green Economy in Central Africa (ROSCEVAC).
At the Council of Ministers meeting on 29 October, no reference was made to the issue of “illegal and dubious contracts”.
Mr. Kitumba’s threat to take legal action, reminiscent of an era we thought is over, is intended only to hide the truth.
Greenpeace Africa maintains its call on the President of the Republic to order an urgent investigation to establish the responsibilities of all those, including Minister Eve Bazaiba, involved in the Tradelink affair and to ensure that appropriate legal sanctions are applied. We call on the Head of State to order the immediate publication of the suspension order of the Tradelink contracts and to ensure the cancellation of all other illegal contracts.
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For more information and interviews:
Raphaël Mavambu, Media and Communication, Greenpeace Africa, [email protected]
Irène Wabiwa Betoko, International Project Manager for the Congo Basin Forest a.i., Greenpeace Africa, [email protected]
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