The port of Safricas in Kinkole, in the East of Kinshasa, has become the scene of an alarming illegal exploitation of forest resources. The massive influx of rafts carrying logs, coming from the province of Equateur, highlights a clandestine network run by unscrupulous owners.
Despite the legal requirements for logging, the majority of raft owners operate without the required documents, thus jeopardizing the legality of any subsequent transaction. This questionable practice involves a series of costs and administrative procedures to be settled upstream, which is not always respected by artisanal loggers.
The Association of Artisanal Forest Operators, through its president Baru, strongly denounces these fraudulent actions. Indeed, the logs are sold directly in the water, bypassing regulatory procedures and imposing on buyers the costs normally borne by the loggers. This situation places buyers in a delicate position, forcing them to pay multiple taxes to legalize a product acquired under dubious conditions.
The tangle of taxes to be paid to extract logs from the water is a way for raft owners to escape state control, thus promoting illegal and unregulated trade. This spiral of irregularities harms the transparency of the timber market and negatively impacts economic actors who respect the standards in force.
It is imperative that the competent authorities take drastic measures to put an end to this illegal exploitation of forest resources at the port of Safricas. Environmental protection, preservation of natural resources and the legality of commercial transactions must prevail to ensure a sustainable future for the forest industry in the Democratic Republic of Congo.