Maluku Steel Company agents and managers have 177 months of salary arrears, a delay of 14.5 years. A situation with negative consequences on the lives of these agents: several of them died without being able to benefit from their due. Others of retirement age cannot retire for lack of severance pay.

All these complaints were presented to their guardian, the Minister of Industry, Julien Paluku KAHONGIA during an interview they had on Wednesday 25 September 2019 in Maluku.

These agents, the majority of whom have already aged, have a hard time understanding the indifference of a state that relegates industrial development, which is nevertheless beneficial for the emergence of the national economy, to second place. They have not gone in four directions to let the Minister of Industry know, “for several years, the State has not thought of clearing these wage arrears. We dare to believe that with the new leadership at the head of the country and at the Ministry of Industry, our situation will be resolved. All agents and managers hope that with the establishment of a new government, the wage situation will be improved,” said Mutombo Sonsola, chairman of SOCIDER’s monitoring committee.

Attentive to the wishes of these state employees who seem to be losing hope, Julien Paluku promised to present the problem of SOSIDER to the Council of Ministers on Friday 27 September. For him, pleas will be made at several levels.

Sensitive to these cries of distress, the Minister of Industry promised to look for partners ready to help this Congolese state-owned industry to recover. The Maluku steel plant is the only steel plant in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A story that may fade away

With the planning of the Inga Dam in 1963, Italian investors thought they could create an industrial development pole for the Congolese domestic market. It was then that a national company was created on 28 March 1972. The National Steel Company, to process Banalia’s iron ore and produce 250,000 tonnes of semi-finished products, such as reinforcing bars, small sections, cold-rolled raw sheet, galvanized sheet and corrugated sheet. The industrial complex would have cost nearly 1.5 billion French francs between 1965 and 1975.

The Congolese State, the owner, entrusted the ownership of the equipment to the public company National Steel (SIDERNA). The Maluku plant was opened in 1974. In 1976, it developed and two cities of 1300 houses were built in its surroundings. The Société d’Exploitation Sidérurgique (SOSIDER) was created to operate this steel complex. SOSIDER was a semi-public company 50% owned by the Congolese State, 25% by the German group Finsider Demag and 25% by the Italian group Consortium Italipianti.

This white elephant only functioned for 5 years, at 10% of its capacity. From 1974 to 1976, the cold treatment plant had a capacity of 150,000 tonnes per year for the manufacture of sheet metal.

In 1980 the hot treatment plant had a capacity of 100 tons of concrete reinforcement and profiles production per year. The latter continued to operate without real production until 1988. In 1985, various development convention funds tried to relaunch the plant, but without success.

On Friday, October 19, 2012, the Congolese government signed a concession contract in Kinshasa with the American company Global ITCM to relaunch Socider. The Minister of the Portfolio at the time, Louise Munga, explained that through this concession, the “Congolese State is disengaging from the Maluku steel complex in favour of Global ITCM, which will have to operate it for twenty years“.

With an investment of US$100 million, the American company Global ITCM was responsible for rehabilitating, modernizing and operating the Socider for twenty years. After this period, the Congolese government should recover this steel company.

This has given workers hope again. Unfortunately, to date, American operators have made the company sicker than before.

Currently, their only hope is the political will visibly demonstrated with the new leaders at the head of the country.

Olivier KAMO