Read the final statement (français) issued by the Canadian NCP – 25 May 2017
On 26 February 2016, a specific instance was submitted to the Canadian NCP by a group of five former employees of the Société Minière et Industrielle du Kivu (SOMINKI) in liquidation, located in Kalima (South Kivu) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), alleging that Banro Corporation had not observed the Guidelines in the DRC.
More specifically, the submitters claimed that Banro failed to settle the final accounts of 4,987 former employees of SOMINKI following the creation of SAKIMA SARL (93% owned by Banro) in 1997 and transfer of SOMINKI’s mining assets, namely, mining titles to SAKIMA.
The NCP conducted an initial assessment and concluded that the question of the liquidation of SOMINKI and the question of the payment of the final accounts of the ex-employees merited further examination. The NCP also concluded that offering facilitated dialogue only between Banro and the submitters without the presence of other key actors in the liquidation process (in particular the Government of DRC and the Liquidation Committee) would not facilitate the completion of the liquidation of SOMINKI.
In May 2017, the NCP released a final statement requesting that the company take action, in good faith, to reactivate the liquidation process. The NCP also asked that the company provide written updates to the NCP 3 months and 6 months after the publication of the final statement. The NCP also recommended that Banro endorse and implement the OECD Guidelines and the OECD Due Diligence for Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement in the Extractive Sector.
The NCP intends to issue a follow-up statement to reflect the company’s actions and responses, as appropriate, to the NCP’s requests.