Most Gold Smuggled out of Country

Radio Okapi reports that only 123 kilos of gold were officially processed and taxed last year by the Congolese state out of an estimated five tons produced annually. The rest was smuggled out of the country. Efforts to reduce smuggling by cutting the applicable tax to one-tenth the previous rate have proven largely unsuccessful, because most of the tax agents have become, in the lovely French expression, "even greater gourmands than before," and keep "demanding more jugs of wine."