The Digital Leap for Forest Taxation in Congo
Representing the Prime Minister, the Minister of Forest Economy Rosalie Matondo inaugurated the tax module of the Timber Legality Verification Information System, better known by its acronym SIVL, on December 5, 2025, in Brazzaville.
Surrounded by the Minister of Finance Christian Yoka and the EU Delegation’s Chargé d’Affaires ad interim Nilson Torben, she described this launch as a significant step in Congo-Brazzaville’s commitment to securing public revenue and promoting responsible timber trade.
Inside the SIVL Tax Module
Developed since 2022, the tax module simplifies declarations for the 17 forest taxes identified in national finance laws, from felling rights to export duties.
Forestry companies submit data only once; the platform automatically calculates obligations, generates invoices, and flags discrepancies in real time.
Once in the portal, concession holders navigate a bilingual dashboard in French and English that highlights upcoming deadlines and color-codes anomalies, an approach co-designed with private sector accountants during workshops in Ouesso, Dolisie, and Pointe-Noire.
Secure tokens linked to the national digital ID card allow administrators to assign differentiated access rights, ensuring sensitive pricing formulas remain confidential while civil society monitors information on volumes and origin.
Each harvested log is tagged with a unique digital identity that tracks it from the concession to the sawmill, port, and container ship, ensuring only wood of legal origin enters supply chains.
Transparent Links with National Financial Systems
The system resides on servers in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire operated by the Ministry of Finance’s data center, with mirror backups to ensure continuity.
Through APIs, the SIVL exchanges information with the databases of customs, tax, and treasury authorities, allowing auditors to track payments from invoice issuance to settlement in the Single Treasury Account.
The director of information systems describes this architecture as a “robust backbone for the state’s digital transformation,” noting that bandwidth requirements remain modest thanks to code optimization and local hosting.
Cybersecurity was a key design criterion: the Congolese computer emergency response team conducted penetration tests, and data is encrypted at rest with 256-bit keys, an approach the ministry believes complies with future CEMAC regulations on critical infrastructure.
The EU-Congo Partnership Reaches New Maturity
The tax module is the latest achievement under the 2010 Voluntary Partnership Agreement on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade, signed between Congo and the European Union.
The EU envoy Nilson Torben hailed the shift from paper to pixels, emphasizing that legality has moved from an aspiration to “a technically and legally verifiable obligation.”
Brussels funded training, software audits, and a helpdesk for operators, while national technicians coded the sensitive components to keep intellectual property in Congolese hands.
In line with the Voluntary Partnership Agreement, Congo will only issue FLEGT licenses to exporters once the SIVL confirms full compliance with tax obligations, a condition European importers believe will facilitate fast-tracking in ports like Antwerp and Le Havre.
Expected Benefits for State Revenue and Ecological Goals
Finance Minister Christian Yoka predicts that real-time monitoring will reduce under-declarations and payment delays, increasing annual forest revenues, which currently account for about five percent of domestic revenue.
Analysts estimate similar systems in Cameroon and Ghana increased revenue by up to 30 percent within two years, a target Brazzaville hopes to meet.
Beyond money, the platform promises carbon dividends: by filtering out illicit wood, it could strengthen Congo’s credibility in REDD+ negotiations and voluntary carbon markets.
Environmental economists calculate that eliminating 100,000 cubic meters of unrecorded logs could avoid nearly 250,000 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually, a figure they argue justifies the investment in servers and training.
Local sawmills, meanwhile, anticipate faster VAT refunds once tax offices trust the digital trail, freeing up liquidity for equipment modernization and downstream processing like furniture and laminated panel manufacturing.
Next Steps for Forest Sector Transparency
Full integration with Congo’s single electronic window for foreign trade is planned for mid-2026, enabling automatic cross-checks between export permits and tax payments.
Authorities also plan a public dashboard where citizens can view aggregated data on harvested volumes, taxes paid, and reforestation commitments, strengthening social accountability.
As Congo moves towards the African Continental Free Trade Area, officials believe a digitized and transparent forestry regime will reassure investors and help local producers capture higher-value niches in processing and eco-certification.