‘Modern robbers’: Lobito corridor plans bring fear and hesitation to DRC | Mining news

Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo – From the port of Lobito in Angola, along Africa’s Atlantic coast, a 1,300 km (800 mi) stretch of railway runs through neighboring Zambia and the resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In DR Congo, the Lobito Corridor connects the mining provinces of Tanganyika, Haut-Lomami, Lualaba and Haut-Katanga – home to some of the world’s largest deposits of critical minerals such as cobalt and copper, earning it its fair share of international attention in recent years.

At the beginning of December, on the edge of a visit to AngolaUnited States President Joe Biden spoke with some of his African counterparts about the Lobito infrastructure project – a multi-country agreement that aims to develop connectivity between the Atlantic and Indian oceans and provide faster access to African minerals for the US and European markets.

But in Congolese towns and cities along the regions that will be connected to the railway project, there are mixed feelings and simmering fears.

The DRC has the world’s largest cobalt reserves and the seventh largest copper reserves.

While some Congolese believe the Lobito project will be a useful trade hub between African countries, others fear it is just a gateway to facilitate further robbing natural resources of the region.

Claude Banza lives in the town of Kolwezi in Lualaba, one of the key points on the route of the corridor, where there are huge mines that rights groups called for the violation of human rights.

“We live in misery, we have no jobs,” Banza told Al Jazeera.

“This Lobito project is a lifesaver for us,” he said, hoping that infrastructure development can help bring more opportunities and hope to local communities.

“As the president said that many jobs will be created, we hope that we will have the means to face the challenges of life,” he said.

The project will lead to the creation of around 30,000 direct and indirect jobs and help reduce poverty in DR Congo, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said last month in Angola.

He spoke in the town of Benguela near the port of Lobito, along with Biden, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, Angolan President Joao Lourenco and Tanzanian Vice President Philip Mpango. The proposed extension of the Corridor eastwards from Zambia to Dar-es-Salaam would allow the project to go all the way to the Indian Ocean.

The development of the Corridor is “a project full of hope for our countries and our region”, said Tshisekedi at the time, calling it “a unique opportunity for regional integration, economic transformation and improvement of the living conditions of our fellow citizens”.

However, many in the DRC disagree.

‘It’s neo-colonialist’

The project is “Pharaonic,” Dady Saleh, a Congolese economic analyst, told Al Jazeera.

While he recognizes its overall economic potential, he said he regrets that the countries where this infrastructure project will take place will only benefit in “crumbs” – pointing to potential dangers for the DRC in particular.

“This project is an organized sale of the region’s natural resources in a capitalist system,” Saleh said. “And especially in the case of the DR Congo, the Congolese will be like commission agents. We have opened our economic market to modern robbers.”

Many others on the front lines of the mining economy feel similarly.

Souverain Kabika lives in the province of Haut-Katanga, another Congolese region connected by rail to Lobito. He works as a copper handler on trucks that transport ore to the port of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania and out to the Indian Ocean.

But now, with the project growing, he fears that what little business he had before will dry up as truck traffic along nearby stretches of road will be significantly depleted in favor of rail.

“This project will probably threaten even the small activities that we used to carry out. At one point I was loading trucks to take goods to Matada. This Corridor could leave me without a job,” he fears.

Analyst Saleh said the DRC is the country with the most on the table in this giant project and believes the government should open its eyes before signing the dotted line with countries that will benefit more from the arrangement.

“The DRC should not sign this contract and [should] renegotiate because it is neo-colonialist,” Saleh said, arguing that the actions of certain African leaders risk returning their countries to “the old days, when railways were built to facilitate the colonialists to transport our raw materials”.

He encourages the Congolese government to make efforts to develop a “complete industrial system”, also decrying the fact that the US invests much more in Angola than in the DRC.

Civil society groups in Lualaba province, considered the cobalt capital of the world, also oppose the project.

Lambert Menda, the provincial coordinator of the New Civil Society of the Congo, a network of organizations, laments the fact that for several decades the natural resources of the DR Congo have benefited foreigners more than the Congolese.

He demands that this time local communities must be at the center of this project, which aims to export ores from the country through the Corridor.

“We want to see wealth in our communities. We don’t want to export minerals anymore, because the importer will earn more than us,” said Menda. “We want to see hospitals, schools and roads to make life easier for the local population.”

‘Game Changer’

Raw materials from various southern DRC provinces already transit from Kolwezi to the ports of Durban in South Africa or Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania to reach the London-based metals market.

This takes a long time, and many logistical resources are involved, analysts say.

Serges Isuzu, an economic analyst based in Kolwezi, believes that the Lobito corridor will only reduce transport costs.

“With the Lobito Corridor, raw material carriers will be able to cover more or less 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) from Kolwezi in the DRC to Lobito in the Republic of Angola. And it will all be over in eight days, which is good,” he said.

Speaking in Angola last month, Biden noted the gains already made, saying that a shipment of copper from Africa to the U.S. that used to take more than a month now arrives in days. “It’s a game changer,” the US president said.

The DRC will be connected to the Corridor through provinces known for their raw materials, making them important in the global energy transition.

These provinces – Tanganyika, Haut-Lomami, Lualaba and Haut-Katanga – owe a large part of their income to the booming mining activities taking place there. However, the gains are not visible in the daily life of the local population.

Even if some progress is reported in terms of local development, much needs to be done to make a “significant impact” on people’s lives, analysts familiar with the areas said.

According to recent World Bank estimates, about 73 percent of Congolese live on less than $2.15 a day, making the DRC one of the poorest countries in the world.

Despite the country’s vast deposits of key metals and minerals, residents of the DRC’s mining provinces are far from prosperous. Most are struggling to make ends meet, living in desperation and insecurity as the vast wealth around them is stolen, rights groups noted.

United Nations Political Document of October 2024 (PDF) on the regional impact of the Lobito Corridor also cited potential future challenges, including environmental impact, land and community conflicts, as well as risks related to health, gender and human rights.

It also appealed to the three governments and other stakeholders to establish processes to “address the adverse impacts and human rights abuses, including any human rights harms associated with cross-border business arising from the Lobito Corridor.”

‘Wrong way’?

Despite the challenges and reluctance among many local residents, Congolese President Tshisekedi remains optimistic about the future of the Lobito project.

“For the DRC, the Corridor represents a strategic opportunity to increase the value of our natural resources, especially copper and cobalt, which account for 70 percent of global demand as part of the energy transition,” he said along with Biden and other leaders in Angola.

Fadhel Kaboub, an associate professor of economics at Denison University in the US, told Al Jazeera that he believes certain countries rich in strategic mineral resources, such as DR Congo, will benefit greatly from the energy transition if the right policies are defined.

According to climate finance experts, these countries will be able to negotiate with foreign powers for their minerals, which will be in high demand on the market until 2035 as part of the energy transition.

However, Congolese analyst Saleh believes that by the US and its partners making “lion’s” contracts in Africa – where, he says, one side bears all the costs while the other gets all the benefits – they are “mortgaging” the hope that many Congolese dream of to that.

“We are in the process of burying this hope with the Lobito project,” he said. “We boast of strategic minerals that the Chinese, Canadians and others have already sold off. For example, they tell us that this Corridor will create 30,000 jobs, which is very little. A project like this should create more than a million decent jobs.”

Saleh encourages governments like the Congolese government to adopt a “neo-mercantile” system, so that Africans can fully enjoy their natural resources.

“Countries like the USA, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have used their natural resources today. We, on the other hand, are not able to transform them even at home, and that is unfortunate,” he complained.

Menda from the New Civil Society pointed out that the Lobito project is inappropriate for the Congolese nation. “We want local processing of our ores here in Lualaba, because transporting our ores to an intermediate state by rail to Lobito will benefit Angola, the country through which our ores will pass, and the importing countries – not us, the local Congolese communities,” he said.

In addition to local economic losses, Saleh also fears security risks posed by the Lobito project.

According to his analysis, the DRC has taken the “wrong path” and through the Lobito project, the security of the southern region of the country will be “controlled” by Angola and the US, linking to the unstable security situation in the eastern DRC. , where the Congolese authorities struggle to restore peace after mineral looting and armed insurgency.

“The Lobito project has adverse security effects on our country,” he said. “The Americans did not give us any gifts; they can do anything to control our minerals, while the DRC risks not being safe.”