Kinshasa, May 10th, 2025 (CPA) – The establishment of an ad-hoc commission to propose an environmental regulatory framework is expected at the Ministry in charge of the environment of the Democratic Republic of Congo in order to strengthen the fight against pollution of nature, according to the minutes of the 43rd Council of Ministers, consulted on Saturday. ‘The President of the Republic has committed the Minister of State in charge of the Environment and Sustainable Development and the Minister in charge of Foreign Trade, in collaboration with his cabinet, to setting up an ad-hoc commission to work on the basis of existing projects, in order to propose a solid and appropriate regulatory framework that will promote the adoption of environmental standards, the standardization of the national way of life and the improvement of the living environment of our fellow citizens’, it is read. The source has explained that the establishment of such standards will make it possible, among other things, to establish a framework for regulating discharges into natural receiving environments, to ensure rigorous assessment of the environmental compliance of classified facilities, and to facilitate ratification of the amendment on hydrocarbons. According to the document, which has been read out on Friday on the national television by the Minister in charge of Culture, the President of the Republic has insisted on the urgent need to provide the country with clear and effective environmental standards, in order to guarantee the quality of air, water and soil. « While the product conformity is ensured by the Congolese Control Office, that of the environment comes under the administration of the Ministry in charge of the Environment. Hence the need for all the parties involved to work together to carry out this task successfully », has stressed Felix Tshisekedi, quoted by Minister Elebe. ‘The absence of environmental standards has many harmful consequences. Producer-operators and other economic operators generate waste in various forms: discharge, dumping or emission, without having a regulatory reference threshold defining acceptable limits for physico-chemical parameters in the environment’, he has said.
Duty to assume its status as a solution country
To motivate this move, the source has added, Felix Tshisekedi has pointed to the DRC’s duty to comply with the various global conventions on REDD+, as a solution country to climate change. ‘The DRC’s status as a solution country in the face of global environmental and climate challenges implies greater responsibility at both national and international level. Article 53 of our Constitution enshrines the right of every citizen to a healthy environment, an essential condition for his or her development’, has explained the Minister in charge of Culture. ‘It is therefore the government’s responsibility to fill this legal vacuum to enable our country to fully assume its role on the international stage in accordance with its destiny as a solution country’, has concluded the President of the Republic quoted in the minutes.ACP/