Matadi, April 28th, 2025 (CPA) – The commitment to ensure that Kongo Central, in the south-west of the Democratic Republic of Congo, effectively benefits from the production and revenue generated by its natural and industrial resources, was expressed by participants at the end of work on the dissemination of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) 2022 report in Matadi on Saturday.
‘Three days were enough to give the gist of the EITI-DRC 2022 report. I am pleased to see that the message is beginning to bear fruit. The reality is that we need to make a commitment so that Kongo Central can effectively benefit from the production and revenue generated by its natural and industrial resources’, said Baudry Omewatu, Head of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the EITI. He added that this session not only provided an opportunity to present the financial and contextual data for the province of Kongo Central, but also to inform the population about the issues surrounding the exploitation of natural resources in this entity. For his part, Jules Benga, president of civil society in Kongo Central, welcomed the initiative, saying that it enabled local communities to better articulate their demands to decision-makers. ‘This is a social approach that aims to ensure that the raw materials produced on our soil, particularly oil, can benefit local populations’, he explained, before calling for the EITI headquarters to be returned to Kongo Central, given the province’s central role in the hydrocarbons sector. The workshop, organized with the support of the World Bank, brought together a number of stakeholders, including members of civil society and local authorities. The latter recommended that the EITI report be made more widely available to the general public, includingoutside institutional circles. A similar event is scheduled to take place shortly in Muanda, a coastal town in the province of Kongo Central.