COBALT NEWS

Unknown - November 29, 2021

Dangerous mining conditions plague Congo, home to the world's largest supply of cobalt, a key ingredient in electric cars. A leadership battle threatens reforms.

The man, Albert Yuma Mulimbi, is a longtime power broker in the Democratic Republic of Congo and chairman of a government agency that works with international mining companies to tap the nation's copper and cobalt reserves, used in the fight against global warming…Mr. Yuma's professed goal is to turn Congo into a reliable supplier of cobalt, a critical metal in electric vehicles, and shed its anything-goes reputation for tolerating an underworld where children are put to work and unskilled and ill-equipped diggers of all ages get injured or killed…But to many in Congo and the United States, Mr. Yuma himself is a problem. As chairman of Gécamines, Congo's state-owned mining enterprise, he has been accused of helping to divert billions of dollars in revenues, according to confidential State Department legal filings reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with a dozen current and former officials in both countries…Top State Department officials have tried to force him out of the mining agency and pushed for him to be put on a sanctions list, arguing he has for years abused his position to enrich friends, family members and political allies…Mr. Yuma denies any wrongdoing and is waging an elaborate lobbying and legal campaign to clear his name in Washington and Congo's capital of Kinshasa, all while pushing ahead with his plans to overhaul cobalt mining…Effectively operating his own foreign policy apparatus, Mr. Yuma has hired a roster of well-connected lobbyists, wired an undisclosed $1.5 million to a former White House official, offered the United States purported intelligence about Russia and critical minerals and made a visit to Trump Tower in New York, according to interviews and confidential documents…His grip on the mining industry has complicated Congo's effort to attract new Western investors and secure its place in the clean energy revolution, which it is already helping to fuel with its vast wealth of minerals and metals like cobalt…Batteries containing cobalt reduce overheating in electric cars and extend their range, but the metal has become known as "the blood diamond of batteries" because of its high price and the perilous conditions in Congo, the largest producer of cobalt in the world. As a result, carmakers concerned about consumer blowback are rapidly moving to find alternatives to the element in electric vehicles, and they are increasingly looking to other nations with smaller reserves as possible suppliers…Congo's president, Felix Tshisekedi, has tried to sideline Mr. Yuma by stacking Gécamines with his own appointees, but he has been unwilling to cross him further. During an interview at his hillside palace in Kinshasa, Mr. Tshisekedi said he had his own strategy for fixing the country's dangerous mining conditions…"It is not going to be up to Mr. Yuma," he said. "It will be the government that will decide."…For Congo, the question boils down to this: Will Mr. Yuma help the country ride the global green wave into an era of new prosperity, or will he help condemn it to more strife and turmoil?..Officials in Congo have begun taking corrective steps, including creating a subsidiary of Gécamines to try to curtail the haphazard methods used by the miners, improve safety and stop child labor, which is already illegal…Under the plan, miners at sites like Kasulo will soon be issued hard hats and boots, tunneling will be forbidden and pit depths will be regulated to prevent collapses. Workers will also be paid more uniformly and electronically, rather than in cash, to prevent fraud…As chairman of the board of directors, Mr. Yuma is at the center of these reforms. That leaves Western investors and mining companies that are already in Congo little choice but to work with him as the growing demand for cobalt makes the small-scale mines - which account for as much as 30 percent of the country's output - all the more essential…Once the cobalt is mined, a new agency will buy it from the miners and standardize pricing for diggers, ensuring the government can tax the sales. Mr. Yuma envisions a new fund to offer workers financial help if cobalt prices decline…Seeking solutions for the artisanal mining problem is a better approach than simply turning away from Congo, argues the International Energy Agency, because that would create even more hardships for impoverished miners and their families…Mr. Yuma is one of Congo's richest businessmen. He secured a prime swath of riverside real estate in Kinshasa where his family set up a textile business that holds a contract to make the nation's military uniforms. A perpetual flashy presence, he is known for his extravagance. People still talk about his daughter's 2019 wedding, which had the aura of a Las Vegas show, with dancers wearing light-up costumes and large white giraffe statues as table centerpieces…The huge mining agency where he is chairman was nationalized and renamed under President Mobutu Sese Seko after Congo gained independence from Belgium in