Kinshasa, May 11th, 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 instructed the Minister of State for the Environment and Sustainable Development and the Minister of Foreign Trade, in collaboration with his cabinet, to set 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 standardisation of the national way of life and the improvement of the living environment of our fellow citizens’, it reads. The source stated that the establishment of such standards will, among other things, make it possible to establish a framework for regulating discharges into natural receiving environments, ensure rigorous assessment of the environmental compliance of classified facilities, and facilitate ratification of the amendment on hydrocarbons. According to the document, which was read out on national television on Friday by the Minister for Culture, the President of the Republic stressed the urgent need to provide the country with clear and effective environmental standards, in order to guarantee the quality of the air, water and soil. ‘While product conformity is ensured by the Congolese Audit Office, environmental conformity is the responsibility of the Ministry in charge of the Environment. Hence the need for all stakeholders to work together to achieve this goal’, said Félix 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 said.
A duty to assume its status as a ‘solution country
To motivate this move, the source added, Félix Tshisekedi 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’, said the Minister 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’, concluded the President of the Republic, quoted in the minutes. CPA/