Kinshasa, August 17th, 2022 (CPA).- The Director General of the National Office of Agricultural Products of Congo (ONAPAC, former National Coffee Office ONC), Guy Bompate Bo-Lounda, denounced the non-payment of taxes and royalties due to its institution by the economic operators who are members of the Federation of Congo Enterprises (FEC) and the Association of Coffee and Cocoa Exporters (ASECAF) based in the east of the country, in defiance of regulatory and legal texts.
He made this denunciation on Tuesday during an interview with the CPA, deploring that a group of exporters of agricultural export products and forwarders of these products based in Beni and Butembo in North Kivu, export them fraudulently and refuse to pay the Office’s service charges on agricultural products in accordance with the relevant legal and regulatory provisions.
According to DG Bompate, the non-payment of service fees on agricultural products by these economic operators deprives ONAPAC of its sources of income and prevents it from loyally fulfilling its sovereign missions entrusted to it by the State.
This non-payment also prevents ONAPAC from respecting the commitments that the DRC has had with international organizations, such as the International Coffee Organization, the International Cocoa Organization as well as the African Coffee Organization by the payment of their international dues. According to the legal texts, any exporter of coffee, cocoa and their derivatives (other agricultural export products) must imperatively provide the documents of the National Office of Agricultural Products of Congo (ONAPAC) required for export, in particular the certificate the quality (QC) for the products, the certificate of international origin (COI) for coffee and the certificate of origin of cocoa (COC), before obtaining the certificate of origin of the plants and the phytosanitary certificate, specified General Manager Guy Bompte Bo-Lounda.
Nevertheless, DG Bompate said he believed in an appropriate solution, especially since Prime Minister Jean Michel Sama Lukonde took the problem in hand, ONAPAC being an instrument of the government. « The government is working, the Prime Minister himself has guaranteed that things will go very well in favor of ONAPAC, » said Guy Bompate.
ONAPAC mission
ONAPAC’s mission is to promote the cultivation and development of internal and external outlets for export agricultural products and their derivatives, such as coffee, tea, cocoa, pyrethrum, rubber, cinchona, papain, cola nut, pygneum, rauwolfia vomitoria, vincadigitalis, vanilla, spice plants, ketchou, lippiamultifora, perfume plants, essential oils, medicinal plants, and ginger.
Projects for the take-off of agriculture in the DRC
In addition, the CEO of ONAPAC, revealed to the CPA, having signed a public-private partnership with the UNESCO Club to develop sunflower first in the provinces of Haut Katanga and Grand Kasaï, before s expand, in other provinces of the country.
The protocol has already been signed and the members of the UNESCO-Club are in the process of raising funds for the project to start.
He also announced the incessant signing of a public-private partnership with a group of Saudi economic operators for an amount of nearly five billion USD in the agricultural field. Within the framework of this partnership, these economic operators will bring fresh capital, while ONAPAC will provide them with spaces (land), where several activities will be developed, in particular the mechanization of agriculture, the development of industry, the processing and marketing of agricultural products through the various provinces of the country.
This project, according to Guy Bompate, will also contribute to the economic development of 145 territories of the DRC, according to the vision of the President of the Republic, Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo.
