Congolese deputy mining minister Victor Kasongo announced last week that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will accelerate the mining review process. The commission set-up to review the contracts submitted the final report to the government since the Fall of 2007. However, the government has yet to move on the prescriptions outlined by the review commission. Leaked reports indicated that the commission recommended that the 61 contracts under review ought to be renegotiated or outright canceled. The mining minster revealed that “We had expected to be able to concentrate our efforts on rectification of a few contracts. We actually found that we had [not a single contract that was properly constituted]. What was meant to be a minor corrective has turned out to be multiple, major surgery.”

The results of the review process will be announced in two weeks according to the government. Companies will have three months to address the concerns raised in the review. Congolese politicians have raised concern that the report has not made it to parliament for its input as this issue is of central concern to the people of the Congo.