Blockchain firm, RCS Global has developed a mine-to-market technology to combat the war against conflict minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In a report by Reuters, it came to light that state officials were using blockchain technology in the Societe Miniere de Bisunzu’s (SMB) mine in Congo to convince their customers that the minerals purchased by them were not part of the bloody supply chain.
RCS Global began executing its blockchain technology solution at the beginning of this year. Using this technology, officials of SMB mine digitally tag the minerals, so that the source of the mineral can be easily found out. Managing director of RCS, Ferdinand Maubrey said,
It allows purchasers of SMB material to be sure that it actually comes from that mine site and is not smuggled into the supply chain from other mines, as much as possible.
At present paper-based certification system exists, which is inclined to forgery. Maubrey explained that the technology developed by RCS Global prevented minerals obtained from other sources from getting mixed with SMB’s clean minerals. All minerals of SMB are now traceable, one can easily find out the source of the mineral if they wish to. The new blockchain technology creates obstacles in the path of any forgery intended, “to use stolen tags, for example, a smuggler would also need to steal both the scanner and the laptop linked to it – which Maubrey said would be easily detected.”
On the other hand, SMB’s chief executive, Ben Mwangachuchu expressed his concerns regarding forgery done by corrupt officials, “if the government agents who tag bags conspire with smugglers to enter incorrect data from the outset… for their own benefit, you will never know.”
SMB is a Congo-based company which is into exploration and mining. It owns the biggest deposits of Coltan in Africa. It aims to become one of the largest producers of Coltan by exploiting its existing coltan reserves.