Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

by Siddharth Kara

The Chinese companies have a negative impact on the Congo through tax evasion and revenue evasion. How did we discover this? We discovered that most Chinese mining companies have two accounts: one account that they prepare for us that understates production, and another account that they show to the Chinese government and state-run banks that is higher than what they declare to us. This is because once they start production, they have to repay their loans. The second issue is the separation of minerals. Copper always comes with a percentage of cobalt. After they separate the metals, a Chinese company will declare the cobalt to us, but not the copper. They know we do not have the capacity to monitor this, so it is another way they evade their payments to us.