President Felix Tshisekedi against anti-competitive practices in the border transport sector

Kinshasa, August 20^th, 2021 (CPA).- The President of the Republic, Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, urged the members of the Government, during the last Council of Ministers chaired by videoconference from his office of AU, to ensure that the various measures to be taken, in particular for the regulation of mineral transport, are not perceived as anti-competitive practices.

The Head of State, referring to this, the Decree of July 29^th, 2021 signed by the Minister in charge of Transport and Ways of Communication conditioning the transport of minerals, from the country, by the use of only vehicles registered in DRC, deplored this measure which obstructs, according to him, competition to the detriment of foreign economic operators.

« The President of the Republic also insisted on the fact that any measures taken in this area should be the subject of a more in-depth study, so as not to go against the grain of the international obligations to which DRC has subscribed », including within the framework of regional integration”, reported, in the report of the aforementioned Council of Ministers, the Minister in charge of Communication and Media, Patrick Muyaya Katembwe.

Discriminatory measure

Such regulation of border transport of goods from DRC enters, for the President of the Republic, in a series of discriminatory measures affecting the free movement of people and goods.

It also violates “the provisions of the Common Market Treaty for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) which prescribe the creation of an environment favorable to interstate competition, the abolition of measures which constitute a brake on movement of people and goods, reduction of non-physical barriers”.

This restriction would run counter to the objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Area (ZLECAF) project which entered into force on January 1^st, 2021, a vast market benefiting today more than 1.2 billion people, and which counts President Felix Tshisekedi among its great defenders.

ZLECAF, headquartered in Ghana, plans, within 15 years at most, to eliminate 90% of customs taxes on goods and services. The idea is to increase intra-African trade and develop wealth there, it is recalled.

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