George Forrest a Congolese story from Kasa Vubu to Tshisekedi
The Forrest group celebrates its 100 years of existence in Lubumbashi. George Forrest, the patriarch, looks back on the history of this family business which merges with the history of the country.
It also takes a look at current events, the future and the sometimes complex links with Belgium.
Mr. George Forrest, this year you are celebrating the 100th anniversary of your group in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
How do we manage to survive and develop for a century in this country crossed by many upheavals?
There have been good times as well as very difficult times.
But I can say that the best way to grow; it is to remain correct with oneself, with the country, to have an ethics in business.
Our strength has always been our social approach.
We were raised by parents who taught us that if you receive from a country, you have to give back to the people.
What we always do with hospitals, schools, dispensaries.
It's a bit like paternalism seen from here...
What does it mean to be paternalistic?
When you have a State that no longer has social structures, which perhaps no longer has the means to put education back at the heart of priorities, it is our duty to react.
It is impossible to build a country without education.
In this context, if private individuals can come in support of the State, it is still not bad. I don't think there are enough companies doing this.
Because with this behavior, you recreate a sense of state.
This means that the private sector replaces the State...
Not entirely. We help the state.
Throughout your career, have you sometimes been criticized, in particular by human rights NGOs, who accuse you of enriching yourself on the backs of a poor country?
It is true that NGOs have not spared us.
I think there is a lot of jealousy. But we must not lose sight of the fact that we did not build our business in a few months or a few years.
We have been in the Congo for a hundred years.
We have gradually put the structures and means in place to be where we are today.
We did not loot the country, we built, we created tens of thousands of jobs.
Despite the storms we sometimes weathered, we stayed and we stayed with our workers.
The Forrest group in Congo, how many workers?
We no longer have the mines, so we have less staff today. We must be at approximately 10,000 workers.
You have known all the Heads of State since the independence of this country, from Kasa Vubu to Tshisekedi, passing through Mobutu and the Kabila, and there is one constant in the history of this country, it has never stopped sink into misery.
How do you explain this long descent into hell and how do you view these heads of state?
Kasa Vubu was the most correct. An idealist.
A man trained in good schools of principles and good governance.
Then we had Mobutu.
His first five years were fabulous because he turned the country around.
He put a whole system back in motion.
Then, he unfortunately embarked on his projects of Zairianization and radicalization which decapitated the country.
He never straightened up.
On the contrary, it was the slow fall of the country into a deep abyss.
Then we saw Kabila senior arrive, he only stayed in power for four years.
He was a revolutionary who thought, when he came to power, that he was going to find the country he had known in the 1960s, but, unfortunately for him, it was the broken Congo of the 1990s, took a long time to understand that there was not much left of this country.
Then he was assassinated and his son was brought to power.
Honestly, his first five years were okay.
After 2006, once he won the elections, badly advised, he went completely off the rails.
His advisers, greedy, eager for easy money, took him into the systems of corruption.
They did everything to bring the Chinese, the Indo-Pakistanis, the Turks to the country with whom it was easier to do business than with the Europeans, who are more careful in terms of ethics.
His policy pushed Europeans to leave the country.
In this list, is the current head of state missing?
He is a man of good will.
He wants to do something but he was badly surrounded.
Unfortunately, he began to sanction his entourage late.
He has a very strong sense of friendship, but his friends still had to be sincere and want to work for the country.
This was not the case, they took advantage of him to build fortunes in a few months.
Today, he sanctioned a few of them.
To hear you, you make the same observation for Joseph Kabila and for Félix Tshisekedi.
The man is well intentioned, but it is those around him who corrupt...
I would say that Kabila was more inclined to follow his advisers and do things on his own.
You talked about the Chinese, the Indo-Pakistanis, the Turks, we see that they occupy a good part of the business in the Congo, how do you explain that the Europeans, and in particular the Belgians, have faded away?
Europe no longer knows Africa, it thinks it knows it but this is often no longer the case.
What is more, Europe has failed to support its businesses and entrepreneurs.
While in all the other countries mentioned, the States support their companies.
Here, on the contrary, companies are opposed.
We listen too much to NGOs.
For them, the less ethics there are in business, the better off they will be, the more business they will have.
What do these NGOs bring as added value, as business, as employment?
Nothing.
NGOs will never develop the country.
I sincerely believe that if European governments had supported their companies, things would have turned out differently.
I claim to be able to say that I know this continent well and that, as a whole, it remains quite favorable to Europe.
The bridges have not been cut between our two continents, but we must not lose sight of the fact that there is a new generation arriving in Africa, which no longer has the same ties with Europe.
A lot of these young people have studied in Russia, China, India, they come less here because they are no longer allowed or because the conditions for coming here have been made more complex.
So when these young people return home, they have in mind the feeling of their welcome in these countries, as the old ones had a form of benevolence for the Europe which had welcomed them.
Today, times are changing.
Eyes are directed to other skies. We should facilitate access to studies for young Africans.
Those who have done good studies, who have good training will go home because they know that they have every chance of having a good position there.
One does not become a migrant for pleasure. Another point that can explain this gap that is emerging between Belgium and Africa is the attitude of the banks.
Here, they are closing the accounts of all residents in Africa and particularly in the Congo.
At the same time, you organize economic missions, you ask people to go and invest in Congo, and when they do, you forbid them to open bank accounts here.
This is total nonsense. I don't understand Europe.
It promotes investment in Africa but it lets the banks exclude those who have the courage to go there.
I therefore wonder whether the States are complicit with the banks or the banks are complicit with the States, to keep the countries of Africa in a state of poverty and thus allow the emergence of rebellions for reasons that they know but that we do not know.
All that explains why the Europeans don't come.
We don't help them, sometimes I even have the impression that we do everything to discourage them.
Concretely, you who have expatriates working for you in Congo. What do you do for their salaries?
We pay them where they tell us, but they no longer have an account in Belgium. Before, that was not the case.
Today, banks give you three months to close your accounts. It is a Belgian specificity.
We can demonstrate that everything is traceable, that all taxes have been paid, that doesn't change anything.
Despite this picture, do you think there are still possibilities for a Belgian to invest in the DRC?
Yes, unquestionably.
But the government must play the game.
It must take clear positions, it must prohibit banks from closing the accounts of those who do business in this country.
Obviously, there are conditions to be respected on both sides.
We must demand maximum transparency. But if there is this transparency, we must prohibit the closing of these accounts.
This is a terrible brake on the development of any business.
What would be the sectors in which a Belgian entrepreneur could seek to invest today in Congo?
I immediately think of the processing sector.
I won't talk about the mines because a lot of resources are needed.
Most have been donated, sadly.
You were in this area... Yes, but Kabila took over our mines.
Without compensating us and the Belgian government did nothing to help us.
We lost these mines and a lot of money.
This is an area to avoid.
mediacongo
Food for thought
Frank
Thank you, also may I extend a brief but sincere apology to all the fans of 'fucktard' and its omission....heaven knows the DRC Government has no shortage of them.
