Kinshasa is seeking to take control of a national vehicle-registration platform developed by South Africa’s Syntell and later operated by its subsidiary Valornet, exposing a broader challenge for governments that rely on private companies to build and run critical digital infrastructure. The dispute has remained unresolved even as the Democratic Republic of Congo moves ahead with a new license plate program.
The platform, known as the National Vehicle Identification system (INV), was created under a public-private partnership signed between the Congolese government and Syntell in 2016. The arrangement was extended for another five years in 2021 and was due to expire in August 2026. Rather than taking over a system that had previously been state-owned, Kinshasa is now seeking to obtain operational control of infrastructure developed and managed by its private-sector partner.
That transition has become contentious. Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba gave Valornet 72 hours on May 25, 2026 to transfer control of the platform to the state. The company argued that its contract provides for software and source code developed under the project to remain the property of the service provider. In July, Justice Minister Guillaume Ngefa Atondoko took the dispute to the Kinshasa-Gombe High Court, seeking an order requiring Valornet to hand over the platform and provide access to its IT infrastructure.
The stakes extend beyond software ownership. INV centralizes vehicle and owner records, registration procedures, payments and revenue-related functions, making the platform part of the infrastructure through which the state administers vehicle registration and collects associated fees. Valornet itself describes the system as covering registration, plate verification, ownership transfers and public-revenue functions.
The dispute also comes as Kinshasa changes the physical side of the registration system. Belgian company Castillo Valere was awarded a contract in August 2025 to supply new license plates, with an initial order of 100,000 pairs. The new plates are intended to be linked to vehicles and their owners through the registration system, making continued access to the digital platform important for the rollout.
The case illustrates a less visible risk in public-private digital projects. A government may retain authority over the public service and the underlying data while depending on a private contractor for the software, technical infrastructure and operational know-how needed to run it. When the contract ends, transferring the service is therefore not necessarily as simple as handing over a government database.
For the DRC, the immediate question is whether Kinshasa can secure uninterrupted control of a system that has become part of vehicle administration and public-revenue collection. More broadly, the Valornet dispute shows why ownership of source code, databases and technical infrastructure can become as important as ownership of physical assets when governments outsource the construction of core digital services.
