Copper and cobalt producer Kamoa Copper SA signed 13 outsourcing contracts with Congolese small and medium-sized businesses two weeks ago. The deals were sealed on August 22. They are worth around $35,000 respectively, based on data from the DRC’s Outsourcing Agency, the ARSP. 2024.

"Kamoa Copper supports entrepreneurship by publishing its tenders on the PSRA website and creating or facilitating partnerships between local and international contractors," said Riaan Vermeulen, the company's managing director.

These contracts mainly involve supplying technical services. "The duration of the contracts has been increased from 12 months to 36 months to help these companies gain credibility with financial institutions, which is essential for their growth and job creation," the company stated on its X account.

Regarding the contracts’ value, the DRC’s law on outsourcing stipulates that for any contract of more than $35,000  a call for expressions of interest is compulsory. The same law allows companies with 51% local ownership to bid for the contract. 

The outsourcing market in the DRC raked in about $8.5 billion in 2022, according to the World Bank. This represented 13.5% of the country’s GDP that year.

In 2023, Kamoa Copper SA's operating expenses surpassed $1 billion, covering various purchases, transport, and external services. The company did not specify how much of this spending was related to compliance with the Subcontracting Act. Between 2022 and 2023, Kamoa Copper announced around $2 billion in similar expenditures.

Georges Auréole Bamba