1Where the contracts live online
| Source | What it holds | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Ministry of Mines portalmines-rdc.cd / mines.gouv.cd | Official DRC contract-publication site (the national ResourceContracts instance), bilingual since 2017. From 2017 the Ministry, not NRGI, took over publication. | Uneven Intermittently reachable; authoritative-but-patchy. |
| ResourceContracts.orgresourcecontracts.org/countries/cd | Global mirror with metadata and plain-language annotations. 120+ DRC extractive contracts after 2017, including many Gécamines JV agreements, amendments and annexes. | Strong (legacy) Best for 1996–2011; post-2018 amendments sparse. |
| congomines.org | Civil-society document repository (Carter Center / NGO lineage). Aggregates contracts, registers and studies; feeds ResourceContracts. | Archive Useful for documents missing elsewhere; passive, not authoritative. |
| CAMI cadastrecami.cd / FlexiCadastre | Public map portal and downloadable mining-rights registers (titles to mid-2025). | Current for titles Strong on who holds which permit. Does not publish contracts. |
| Open Contracting | Standard/methodology (OCDS identifiers appear on every ResourceContracts URL), not a separate DRC store. | Standard Format layer, not a repository. |
So the disclosure is real but fragmented across five locations of differing authority and currency. Well corroborated· NRGIMinistryOpen Contracting
2Legal basis for publication
- 2002 Mining Code (Law 007/2002, World Bank-assisted): established the modern regime and the cadastre.
- 2011 publication decree: following the 2007–08 review of ~60 contracts, made publication of natural-resource contracts mandatory. This is the domestic obligation NGOs cite when alleging breaches.
- 2018 revised Mining Code (Law 18/001): raised state free-carry, royalties and a “strategic minerals” super-royalty on cobalt; embedded EITI principles and beneficial-ownership disclosure.
- EITI Requirement 2.4: since 1 January 2021, the full text of any contract, licence, annex, addendum or amendment granted or amended from that date must be published. Redacted or summarised versions do not comply.
Well corroborated· EITIlaw firmsNRGI
3Named State / Gécamines deals and their public status
| Deal | Parties | Disclosure status |
|---|---|---|
| Tenke Fungurume (TFM) | CMOC 80% / Gécamines 20% | Partial Founding contracts and 2023 settlement published; the revised terms were a long-standing gap. |
| Kamoa-Kakula | Ivanhoe / Zijin / State 20% | Gap Ownership in filings, but the underlying mining convention is not clearly published as full text. |
| KCC / Kamoto | Glencore ~75% / Gécamines ~25% | Partial Core JVA published; later amendments and Ventora/Gertler royalty arrangements only partly disclosed. |
| Mutanda (MUMI) | Glencore | Partial Some documents published; the Ventora royalty arrangement litigated and only partially public. |
| Sicomines | Chinese consortium 68% / Gécamines 32% | Partial 2008 convention published; full-text status of the 2024 amendment unclear. |
| Deziwa | CNMC / Gécamines | Gap Only a covering framework is public; Global Witness found the operative subcontracts are not. |
| Metalkol / Roan (RTR) | ERG | Partial The 2017 Gécamines royalty-sale agreement is on ResourceContracts; the stake-sale contract was a flashpoint. |
| “SMCO” / Soc. Min. de Kolwezi | Gécamines-linked | Unverified Acronym did not resolve cleanly against sources; treat as unconfirmed. |
Status ratings reflect what could be found published, cross-checked against ResourceContracts, congomines and the named watchdog reports. Several ownership percentages vary slightly across sources; the most commonly cited are used.
4Known contract disputes
- CMOC vs Gécamines (TFM royalties, 2022–23). Gécamines obtained an export halt in July 2022 alleging under-reported reserves (claiming up to USD 7.6bn); settled 2023 with CMOC paying ~USD 800m plus dividends. The 2023 settlement is published. Well corroborated· Mining-TechnologyResourceContracts
- Glencore / Gertler (Ventora, Africa Horizons). After the 2017 sanctions, Glencore restructured royalty payments to non-USD to avoid asset seizure; Ventora served freezing orders on Mutanda and KCC. The pre-sanctions royalty-transfer agreements are only partially public. Corroborated· MINING.comSharecast
- Sicomines amendment and audit. A 2023 Inspectorate-General of Finance audit reportedly found only ~one-third of the infrastructure envelope disbursed, triggering the 2024 renegotiation; a fresh audit was ordered in early 2026. Single source· trade press
5How complete is contract disclosure?
The consensus across independent assessors
Founding JV contracts from the 1996–2011 “revisitation” era are largely published. The systematic, well-documented gaps are three:
- Post-2018 / post-2021 amendments, which is where the live commercial terms now sit.
- The operative subcontracts and annexes behind “framework” documents, Deziwa is the cleanest example, where only the cover is public.
- JV side-agreements and royalty-stream deals, Gertler/Ventora, the Metalkol royalty sale, the revised TFM terms.
The Carter Center, NRGI, Global Witness and the EITI’s own framing all converge: signed contracts, amendments and side-agreements are not all published, and the gap is structural rather than incidental. Well corroborated· Carter CenterNRGIGlobal WitnessEITI
- Carter Center, A State Affair (2017). Built on >100 contracts and >1,000 corporate documents; found Gécamines “failed to publish dozens of mining contracts, amendments and annexes as required by law.”
- NRGI Resource Governance Index (2021). DRC mining scored 36/100 (“weak”), oil and gas 25/100; Gécamines ranked 53rd of 74 state-owned enterprises assessed. Corroborated· 2021 data; no confirmed later RGI
- RAID with AFREWATCH, Beneath the Green (March 2024). The strongest clearly in-window report, on toxic water pollution around Kolwezi across KCC, Mutanda, TFM, Metalkol and COMMUS.
- EITI. Publishing summaries or redactions is non-compliant under 2.4; global progress reporting notes many countries, DRC among them, have not published all annexes and amendments.
Flag. A “62 contracts across 17 operations not published” figure circulates from a Carter Center / NGO study but was located via secondary summary, not the primary text. Single source· confirm before quoting
Drill-down: the contract-by-contract inventory. The full ResourceContracts.org DRC corpus (347 documents) was pulled and mapped against the named deals above, establishing exactly which agreements, amendments and annexes are present, missing, or only summarised. Notably, the 2024 Sicomines renegotiation is published, while no Glencore/KCC, Metalkol or COMMUS core agreement could be located. See the full inventory →