Spikerama
Regular
Ok well it's ready to go at first sight of anymore bullshit.
AVZ Discussion 2022
- Thread starter GazDix
- Start date
Ok well it's ready to go at first sight of anymore bullshit.
Have they ever released an announcement regarding changes on the CAMI site?
MoneyBags1348
Top 20
Spike CKK is the acting manager of Cominiere. Mupande is DG of CAMI and is constantly making changes to the Landfolio Portal so you should wait for AVZ to announce details.
Mr Inappropriate
Regular
Hi Spike, I meant to send you this ages ago. If you have some capacity and inclination to continue the attack on our friends at Zijin here are some ideas.
- Zijin: Pillagers of DRC
- <something about underreporting mining volumes to evade royalties>
- <something about human rights and worker abuse>
- Morally bankrupt
- Zijin: Plunderers of DRC
- Bribing officials since xxx (careful - legal exposure here)
- Investment in Manono - $0 (excluding bribes paid)
Mr Inappropriate
Regular
My understanding is that CAMI do not have jurisdiction or authority to do such a thing. They manage the cadastral records and portal, and manage surface fees.
Hemicuda
Regular
Time to fuck off yet hey Pete? Or is it Peute?
Peter Clark? The name is a little obvious don't you think ? Better than John Smith .
Xerof
Biding my Time 1971
For the record only, can't let that go as an uncontested statement of fact. Celestin Kibeya does not work for CAMI. He works for COMINIERE, well, for the moment anyway.....
Spikerama
Regular
That's what I thought. He's the seat warming CEO pr MD right?
Hemicuda
Regular
Buye buye peute
Hemicuda
Regular
My opinion is your a shit cunt with a fake name ???
Azzler
Top 20
I agree, wait a minute ok.
I have been pondering what made him make a twitter account and taunt AVZ shareholders.
Was he hoping an outraged mass would begin slinging vile hatred at the DRC and all its government so they can use that against us?
I was expecting that myself but so far I've seen restraint and thoughtful responses.
If it is him (CKK) though, it just beggers belief.
Imagine being the head of a governemnt agency, and creating a twitter account specifically to taunt thousands of investors, families, who saved their hard earned money and chose to invest in your own country, to taunt them you've stolen all their investments.
My brain cant even make sense of it.
We don't even know its him to be honest, could be a Zijin agent, with info passed on to them. Goal is to stir the pot.
Wait until we know more.
ICC ruling for now is the Dathcom JV contract is still in effect. So I also call bullshit.
My other thoughts are to the recent freeze in licence grants, could it be possible they know what these guys were attempting and this is a block to those shenannigans?
Just thoughs to ponder upon on a very wobbly day.
Keep going depite the wobbles my lads!
CKK is stand-in manager for Cominière, he can't as a one man-band change the Cadastre.
The Cadastre can't on its own change the ownership of a lease, that has to come from a minister.
The MoM is in Turkey from 9/5 to 11/5 drumming up business for the mining industry (not a great time to kick an organisation of a mining lease, which has done all the hard work, discovered a huge deposit and is waiting for a mining license).
FT arrived on Tuesday in Botswana, while on a tour around Africa.
I believe the PM has to report to the council of ministers this Friday what progress has been made in regards of job creation etc.
So interesting times.
Maybe the last move of the DRC mafia, applying for a plush room in Makata.
I don't know how much help can be expected from FT or Jules A,
At the end of the day they don't give a flying fuk about AVZ, their interest is DRC and theft from the DRC, not from AVZ.
On top of that FT wants to come home alive and re-elected.
MoneyBags1348
Top 20
Funny how you were onto the tenement change by CAMI before anyone else, it’s as though you were there.
I got off here because of fuckwits like you but still read the forum.
I suggest shareholders here read all your comments…. You down-ramping, short-selling, cock-gobbling, cong-klaus-zijin-mupand-kibeya-tommy turd-burgling, monkey-fucking, arse-licking porno-addicted loser
Now before I get moderated and suspended again (which by the way is what I really want, and in fact wasn’t even half what I should have got zeebots!!!!) I just want to add….
All the above is in my opinion only and all I’m doing is simply venting
And if any of you believe that I’ll award myself a new ‘Mantle’ now hurry up and suspend me again because I’m sick of the bullshit by people like this peter clark arse clown
Last edited:
Some interesting articles, old stuff, but important to understand certain events:
This article is part of the dossier:The balance of power in the new DRC
By François Soudan
Editor-in-chief of Jeune Afrique
Posted on Tuesday, 24 September 2019 14:25
A self-assured Félix Tshisekedi inspects a guard of honour with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
When he stepped onto the tarmac of Brussels airport on 16 September, welcomed by the Belgian deputy prime minister at the start of his first official visit to Europe, Félix Tshisekedi probably remembered the day in 1983 when he landed there with his mother and siblings.
He was only 19. For several years he was to live the life of a refugee, dependent on welfare and roaming the streets of Matonge, the Belgian capital’s African quarter. His father, Étienne, had stayed in Zaire where, for a decade, he fought almost single-handedly against President Mobutu Sese Seke, the man he had once served before courageously breaking with him. During these years he was repeatedly imprisoned by the dictator.
Thirty-six years later, the man who is now treading the red carpet, inspecting guards of honour and having tea with the Belgian monarch is at the heart of one of the most incredible political cohabitations in Africa.
A kind of peaceful (and transitional) co-management of state affairs has been established between the outgoing president, Joseph Kabila – to whom credit should be given for not trying to impose his dauphin – and his successor. Little by little, Félix Tshisekedi is making a name for himself after surfing to power on his illustrious father’s surname.
Few observers dared to believe in this president eight months ago. The victor in what many considered a flawed election, he was seen as impressionable and lacking in experience, leaning heavily on his omnipresent chief of staff, the veteran politician Vital Kamerhe. If this was true, full marks to the student for learning so quickly.
The international stance that Tshisekedi is adopting is a major factor. The bland and hesitant president seen at March’s One Planet Summit in Nairobi has, in just over six months, become a calm and fluent orator enjoying his status.
The danger, as always, is hubris. As the Congolese by nature are attracted to nationalist sentiment and inclined to live life in exhilarating expectation of the future, all heads of state, from Mobutu to Joseph Kabila, have played the prodigal son with a “Congo is back” mantra – before, inevitably, disappointing. “A patient, humble and listening force” is how Félix Tshisekedi described himself in a recent interview with Le Soir. Long may he remain so.
This article is part of the dossier:The balance of power in the new DRC
By in Kinshasa
Posted on Monday, 23 September 2019 18:30, updated on Tuesday, 24 September 2019 14:27
Felix Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, reviews troops during a welcoming ceremony at the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Belgium September 17, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir - RC1B3D881480
Eight months after his inauguration, President Félix Tshisekedi is encircled by his predecessor, trying to battle internal feuds while using his personal popularity to break Kabila's grip.
The white smoke was slow to rise in Kinshasa.
But the government, appointed on 26 August, seven months after Felix Tshisekedi’s inauguration, and “endorsed” by the National Assembly on 6 September, is now operational.
As he reviewed these long months of negotiations, an adviser to the Head of State refers, with some surprise, to the “very cordial relations” between the new President and his predecessor. Might their many meetings in front of the cameras and off-site since January be testament to this relationship? “Joseph Kabila understood that if Felix Tshisekedi failed, it would also cost him,” confides this close friend of the Head of State who prefers anonymity.
Perhaps. There were protracted strong behind the scenes to form a compromise government, whose ability to deliver will be closely scrutinized. For seven months, Joseph Kabila and Felix Tshisekedi, through their respective teams, patiently tried to resolve the differences.
The rejection of Gécamines’ boss Albert Yuma’s candidacy for prime minister, the orders issued on Gécamines and the Société nationale des chemins de fer du Congo (SNCC) without consulting the Kabila clan (which has since blocked their application), as well as the remarks of Félix Tshisekedi who, on a visit to Washington in early April, stressed that he was “there to unblock the dictatorial system that was in place”, were seen as ways to affirm the new president’s authority.
Which inevitably led to blockages, proof that the FCC and the Cape for Change (Cach, Félix Tshisekedi’s coalition) continue to test their power.
He is omnipresent behind the scenes, one of the key figures of the Tshisekedi system, along with the powerful and equally omnipresent cabinet director, Vital Kamerhe, who has four deputies. To his closest friends he has always maintained that he is “in the right place” in this position.
An entry into government has never really been an issue for the former President of the National Assembly.
And if the post of Prime Minister was attributed, on May 20, to Sylvestre Ilunga Ilunga Ilunkamba, Félix Tshisekedi’s right-hand man “knows he is more powerful in his position than in the government”, explains an official of the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC, de Vital Kamerhe).
There, in his offices at the Palais de la Nation, the official residence of the President of the Republic, which Félix Tshisekedi has abandoned in favour of the Cité de l’Union africaine, Kamerhe has carved out a role for himself in line with his political influence.
At 60, as part of the partnership he forms with the new head of state, he has experience in “public affairs” and a mastery of the workings of the Kabila system, of which he was for a long time one of the key elements, notably at the head of the victorious 2006 campaign.
“Felix Tshisekedi is still learning. Kamerhe was useful to him in understanding a character that his party had long fought. He is the key man, both for the president and for Kabila,” assures a Cach executive close to Vital Kamerhe. Except that this gearbox is now threatening to jam. Indeed, the presidency – where Felix Tshisekedi had promised to break with the excesses of previous administrations – has been in turmoil for several weeks.
The cause was an arm wrestle with the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF), which threatens the entourage of the president. Kamerhe was accused along with three others in the IGF report on suspected embezzlement of $15m in connection with the handling of compensation for oil companies following the 2017 pump price freeze. Kamehe also requested that the audit of departmental finances and controls on several private companies be suspended.
Pressed by civil society to shed light on this case, Tshisekedi, who promised to end corruption, said he was letting “judicial institutions do their job”. His recent interventions suggest that the time for arbitration has not yet come. His video message broadcast on September 8 or his intervention at the Makutano forum carefully avoided the subject, favouring promises and insisting on the urgency of a “change in mentalities”.
This silence that annoys civil society associations. It is justified among the president’s entourage by a desire not to “expose divisions”. On Twitter, Kasongo Mwema Yamba Y’amba, the Presidency spokesman, said that this silence was more in line with “respect for a democratic principle”.
Because if everything suggests that the two headliners of Cach get along well, the influence of Kamerhe, to which the Head of State submits many of his advisers, is annoying in the ranks of the presidency, where we would like to see “the dircab” take a step back. “He’s an ally, but he’s not a friend,” says a member of the president’s entourage. We don’t know how long he will be satisfied with such a position, so we move one hand in front of a hand behind.”
In Kamerhe’s entourage, some people complain of being attacked, given how frequently the name of chief of staff comes up in the so-called “$15m” case.
Suspicion has fallen on the presidency. Some, in the circle of the “dircab”, do not hesitate to openly suspect relatives of the president of being at work behind the IGF scandal to regain influence with the head of state. Others point out that these IGF inspectors were appointed by Tshisekedi’s predecessor and that the “dircab” did not “have only friends at the FCC”.
In these circumstances, it is worth considering the future of the Nairobi Agreement. It has already suffered from negotiations on the formation of the government, which highlighted the differences between UDPS and UNC, with ministries torn at the last minute from one side to the other and a mistrust of each other’s appetite.
Above all, the clause in the agreement that Tshisekedi will support Kamerhe in 2023 seems more hypothetical than ever in these turbulent times.
Félix Tshisekedi has thus been able to undertake several visible infrastructure projects (such as the road works launched as part of his “100-day programme” in Kinshasa and the provinces), for some $304m (€267.4m), and to increase travel, especially to his eastern neighbours, to discuss security issues.
To Joseph Kabila’s political power — control of the National Assembly, the Senate and 22 of the country’s 26 provinces — which give him undeniable weight, the new president thus wishes to oppose his popularity.
However, propelled to the head of state two months after the creation of the Cach in Nairobi, Tshisekedi and Kamerhe did not have time to structure their coalition. “This will come, the negotiations around the government had taken up most of the time until now,” says Aime Boji, Deputy Secretary General of the UNC.
Not everything was easy during the negotiations.
Discussions on the sharing of the 23 posts allocated to the Cach (out of 65 ministerial posts) were based on the Nairobi Agreement, the birth certificate of this coalition, which provided that if Tshisekedi won the presidential election, the primacy and other strategic portfolios would revert to the UNC.
After the appointment in May of a Prime Minister, Sylvestre Ilunga, from Joseph Kabila’s FCC, Kamerhe claimed half of the 23 portfolios allocated to the Cach. Finally, eight positions were allocated to the NCU.
After heated exchanges, the vice-primature in charge of the Budget, in particular, fell to Vital Kamerhe’s party, which also received no senior ministry, to the surprise of many in Kinshasa.
“It’s a mistrust-confidence marriage,” summarizes one FCC executive. Gradually, trust will take precedence over mistrust.” The head of state will therefore have to fight on two fronts: with his FCC ally and within the presidency, threatened by score settling.
DRC: The metamorphosis of Félix Tshisekedi
IN DEPTHThis article is part of the dossier:The balance of power in the new DRC
By François Soudan
Editor-in-chief of Jeune Afrique
Posted on Tuesday, 24 September 2019 14:25
A self-assured Félix Tshisekedi inspects a guard of honour with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
When he stepped onto the tarmac of Brussels airport on 16 September, welcomed by the Belgian deputy prime minister at the start of his first official visit to Europe, Félix Tshisekedi probably remembered the day in 1983 when he landed there with his mother and siblings.
He was only 19. For several years he was to live the life of a refugee, dependent on welfare and roaming the streets of Matonge, the Belgian capital’s African quarter. His father, Étienne, had stayed in Zaire where, for a decade, he fought almost single-handedly against President Mobutu Sese Seke, the man he had once served before courageously breaking with him. During these years he was repeatedly imprisoned by the dictator.
Thirty-six years later, the man who is now treading the red carpet, inspecting guards of honour and having tea with the Belgian monarch is at the heart of one of the most incredible political cohabitations in Africa.
A kind of peaceful (and transitional) co-management of state affairs has been established between the outgoing president, Joseph Kabila – to whom credit should be given for not trying to impose his dauphin – and his successor. Little by little, Félix Tshisekedi is making a name for himself after surfing to power on his illustrious father’s surname.
Few observers dared to believe in this president eight months ago. The victor in what many considered a flawed election, he was seen as impressionable and lacking in experience, leaning heavily on his omnipresent chief of staff, the veteran politician Vital Kamerhe. If this was true, full marks to the student for learning so quickly.
Through his frequent gestures of political appeasement and on basic freedoms, by patiently negotiating with Kabila, inch by inch, to form of a coalition government, by announcing that his flagship project (costing $37m a month!) will be free primary education, Tshisekedi has gradually filled the serious legitimacy gap he faced immediately after the presidential election. As a result, instead of crumbling once the honeymoon period was over, his popularity has increased. (Granted, there was no honeymoon period.)
The international stance that Tshisekedi is adopting is a major factor. The bland and hesitant president seen at March’s One Planet Summit in Nairobi has, in just over six months, become a calm and fluent orator enjoying his status.
Just as you have to walk to move forward, he has acquired confidence by governing. Today, all those who publicly doubted the validity of his election – from Washington to Kigali, via Paris, Brussels, Luanda or Lusaka – treat him as a guest star. The Congolese appreciate this metamorphosis, for all they want is to regain their pride in living in a great country with whom people want to do business. Since independence they have dreamed of what they could be if the riches of their soil and subsoil finally went from potential to reality.
The danger, as always, is hubris. As the Congolese by nature are attracted to nationalist sentiment and inclined to live life in exhilarating expectation of the future, all heads of state, from Mobutu to Joseph Kabila, have played the prodigal son with a “Congo is back” mantra – before, inevitably, disappointing. “A patient, humble and listening force” is how Félix Tshisekedi described himself in a recent interview with Le Soir. Long may he remain so.
DRC: Félix Tshisekedi’s difficult balancing act
IN DEPTHThis article is part of the dossier:The balance of power in the new DRC
By in Kinshasa
Posted on Monday, 23 September 2019 18:30, updated on Tuesday, 24 September 2019 14:27
Felix Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, reviews troops during a welcoming ceremony at the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Belgium September 17, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir - RC1B3D881480
Eight months after his inauguration, President Félix Tshisekedi is encircled by his predecessor, trying to battle internal feuds while using his personal popularity to break Kabila's grip.
The white smoke was slow to rise in Kinshasa.
But the government, appointed on 26 August, seven months after Felix Tshisekedi’s inauguration, and “endorsed” by the National Assembly on 6 September, is now operational.
As he reviewed these long months of negotiations, an adviser to the Head of State refers, with some surprise, to the “very cordial relations” between the new President and his predecessor. Might their many meetings in front of the cameras and off-site since January be testament to this relationship? “Joseph Kabila understood that if Felix Tshisekedi failed, it would also cost him,” confides this close friend of the Head of State who prefers anonymity.
Perhaps. There were protracted strong behind the scenes to form a compromise government, whose ability to deliver will be closely scrutinized. For seven months, Joseph Kabila and Felix Tshisekedi, through their respective teams, patiently tried to resolve the differences.
- “Everyone has put up their guardrails,” says a member of the Common Front for Congo (FCC), the coalition formed around Joseph Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD).
The rejection of Gécamines’ boss Albert Yuma’s candidacy for prime minister, the orders issued on Gécamines and the Société nationale des chemins de fer du Congo (SNCC) without consulting the Kabila clan (which has since blocked their application), as well as the remarks of Félix Tshisekedi who, on a visit to Washington in early April, stressed that he was “there to unblock the dictatorial system that was in place”, were seen as ways to affirm the new president’s authority.
Which inevitably led to blockages, proof that the FCC and the Cape for Change (Cach, Félix Tshisekedi’s coalition) continue to test their power.
Ubiquitous Kamerhe
While waiting for the composition of the government, and to fill the void, Félix Tshisekedi focused on structuring a large cabinet: 110 members, including 80 advisors, in 16 groups, five per sector. Among the most central figures of this vast presidency is François Beya, special adviser on security issues.He is omnipresent behind the scenes, one of the key figures of the Tshisekedi system, along with the powerful and equally omnipresent cabinet director, Vital Kamerhe, who has four deputies. To his closest friends he has always maintained that he is “in the right place” in this position.
An entry into government has never really been an issue for the former President of the National Assembly.
And if the post of Prime Minister was attributed, on May 20, to Sylvestre Ilunga Ilunga Ilunkamba, Félix Tshisekedi’s right-hand man “knows he is more powerful in his position than in the government”, explains an official of the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC, de Vital Kamerhe).
There, in his offices at the Palais de la Nation, the official residence of the President of the Republic, which Félix Tshisekedi has abandoned in favour of the Cité de l’Union africaine, Kamerhe has carved out a role for himself in line with his political influence.
At 60, as part of the partnership he forms with the new head of state, he has experience in “public affairs” and a mastery of the workings of the Kabila system, of which he was for a long time one of the key elements, notably at the head of the victorious 2006 campaign.
“Felix Tshisekedi is still learning. Kamerhe was useful to him in understanding a character that his party had long fought. He is the key man, both for the president and for Kabila,” assures a Cach executive close to Vital Kamerhe. Except that this gearbox is now threatening to jam. Indeed, the presidency – where Felix Tshisekedi had promised to break with the excesses of previous administrations – has been in turmoil for several weeks.
The cause was an arm wrestle with the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF), which threatens the entourage of the president. Kamerhe was accused along with three others in the IGF report on suspected embezzlement of $15m in connection with the handling of compensation for oil companies following the 2017 pump price freeze. Kamehe also requested that the audit of departmental finances and controls on several private companies be suspended.
Pressed by civil society to shed light on this case, Tshisekedi, who promised to end corruption, said he was letting “judicial institutions do their job”. His recent interventions suggest that the time for arbitration has not yet come. His video message broadcast on September 8 or his intervention at the Makutano forum carefully avoided the subject, favouring promises and insisting on the urgency of a “change in mentalities”.
This silence that annoys civil society associations. It is justified among the president’s entourage by a desire not to “expose divisions”. On Twitter, Kasongo Mwema Yamba Y’amba, the Presidency spokesman, said that this silence was more in line with “respect for a democratic principle”.
Because if everything suggests that the two headliners of Cach get along well, the influence of Kamerhe, to which the Head of State submits many of his advisers, is annoying in the ranks of the presidency, where we would like to see “the dircab” take a step back. “He’s an ally, but he’s not a friend,” says a member of the president’s entourage. We don’t know how long he will be satisfied with such a position, so we move one hand in front of a hand behind.”
What future for the Nairobi Agreement?
From rumours about public spending and correspondence leaking on social networks, the annual budget already exceeded since June… Many saw in the difficulties that marked the first six months of the five-year period a lack of preparation of the coalition.In Kamerhe’s entourage, some people complain of being attacked, given how frequently the name of chief of staff comes up in the so-called “$15m” case.
Suspicion has fallen on the presidency. Some, in the circle of the “dircab”, do not hesitate to openly suspect relatives of the president of being at work behind the IGF scandal to regain influence with the head of state. Others point out that these IGF inspectors were appointed by Tshisekedi’s predecessor and that the “dircab” did not “have only friends at the FCC”.
In these circumstances, it is worth considering the future of the Nairobi Agreement. It has already suffered from negotiations on the formation of the government, which highlighted the differences between UDPS and UNC, with ministries torn at the last minute from one side to the other and a mistrust of each other’s appetite.
Above all, the clause in the agreement that Tshisekedi will support Kamerhe in 2023 seems more hypothetical than ever in these turbulent times.
- For a relative of the Congolese President’s family, there is no doubt that the two men will meet “face to face and no longer side by side” in 2023.
- And some, in the presidency, are pushing for a clarification of the position of the Head of State in favour of investigations, even if it means threatening Vital Kamerhe’s position.
Popularity vs power
Blurry, sometimes cacophonic, this organization nevertheless allowed the president to occupy the field in moments of uncertainty during the negotiations. “With the support of international partners, Félix Tshisekedi had no reason to rush into forming a government in which he knew he would be a minority,” says a Western diplomat. He took the opportunity to build a presidency with advisors in charge of portfolios similar to those of ministers to launch several projects so that the future government would follow in his footsteps. It’s a way to rebalance things.”Félix Tshisekedi has thus been able to undertake several visible infrastructure projects (such as the road works launched as part of his “100-day programme” in Kinshasa and the provinces), for some $304m (€267.4m), and to increase travel, especially to his eastern neighbours, to discuss security issues.
To Joseph Kabila’s political power — control of the National Assembly, the Senate and 22 of the country’s 26 provinces — which give him undeniable weight, the new president thus wishes to oppose his popularity.
However, propelled to the head of state two months after the creation of the Cach in Nairobi, Tshisekedi and Kamerhe did not have time to structure their coalition. “This will come, the negotiations around the government had taken up most of the time until now,” says Aime Boji, Deputy Secretary General of the UNC.
Not everything was easy during the negotiations.
Discussions on the sharing of the 23 posts allocated to the Cach (out of 65 ministerial posts) were based on the Nairobi Agreement, the birth certificate of this coalition, which provided that if Tshisekedi won the presidential election, the primacy and other strategic portfolios would revert to the UNC.
After the appointment in May of a Prime Minister, Sylvestre Ilunga, from Joseph Kabila’s FCC, Kamerhe claimed half of the 23 portfolios allocated to the Cach. Finally, eight positions were allocated to the NCU.
After heated exchanges, the vice-primature in charge of the Budget, in particular, fell to Vital Kamerhe’s party, which also received no senior ministry, to the surprise of many in Kinshasa.
Containment strategy
With the Senate, the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies in the hands of the FCC, the encirclement strategy for which Joseph Kabila seems to have opted appears to be well in place. It remains to be seen how the Tshisekedi presidency will succeed in imposing its brand, now that the government is appointed and operational.“It’s a mistrust-confidence marriage,” summarizes one FCC executive. Gradually, trust will take precedence over mistrust.” The head of state will therefore have to fight on two fronts: with his FCC ally and within the presidency, threatened by score settling.
TheCount
Regular
I'm not reading that - under protest for the inaction the head cunt displays.Some interesting articles, old stuff, but important to understand certain events:
DRC: The metamorphosis of Félix Tshisekedi
IN DEPTH
This article is part of the dossier:The balance of power in the new DRC
By François Soudan
Editor-in-chief of Jeune Afrique
Posted on Tuesday, 24 September 2019 14:25
A self-assured Félix Tshisekedi inspects a guard of honour with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
When he stepped onto the tarmac of Brussels airport on 16 September, welcomed by the Belgian deputy prime minister at the start of his first official visit to Europe, Félix Tshisekedi probably remembered the day in 1983 when he landed there with his mother and siblings.
He was only 19. For several years he was to live the life of a refugee, dependent on welfare and roaming the streets of Matonge, the Belgian capital’s African quarter. His father, Étienne, had stayed in Zaire where, for a decade, he fought almost single-handedly against President Mobutu Sese Seke, the man he had once served before courageously breaking with him. During these years he was repeatedly imprisoned by the dictator.
Thirty-six years later, the man who is now treading the red carpet, inspecting guards of honour and having tea with the Belgian monarch is at the heart of one of the most incredible political cohabitations in Africa.
A kind of peaceful (and transitional) co-management of state affairs has been established between the outgoing president, Joseph Kabila – to whom credit should be given for not trying to impose his dauphin – and his successor. Little by little, Félix Tshisekedi is making a name for himself after surfing to power on his illustrious father’s surname.
Few observers dared to believe in this president eight months ago. The victor in what many considered a flawed election, he was seen as impressionable and lacking in experience, leaning heavily on his omnipresent chief of staff, the veteran politician Vital Kamerhe. If this was true, full marks to the student for learning so quickly.
Through his frequent gestures of political appeasement and on basic freedoms, by patiently negotiating with Kabila, inch by inch, to form of a coalition government, by announcing that his flagship project (costing $37m a month!) will be free primary education, Tshisekedi has gradually filled the serious legitimacy gap he faced immediately after the presidential election. As a result, instead of crumbling once the honeymoon period was over, his popularity has increased. (Granted, there was no honeymoon period.)
The international stance that Tshisekedi is adopting is a major factor. The bland and hesitant president seen at March’s One Planet Summit in Nairobi has, in just over six months, become a calm and fluent orator enjoying his status.
Just as you have to walk to move forward, he has acquired confidence by governing. Today, all those who publicly doubted the validity of his election – from Washington to Kigali, via Paris, Brussels, Luanda or Lusaka – treat him as a guest star. The Congolese appreciate this metamorphosis, for all they want is to regain their pride in living in a great country with whom people want to do business. Since independence they have dreamed of what they could be if the riches of their soil and subsoil finally went from potential to reality.
The danger, as always, is hubris. As the Congolese by nature are attracted to nationalist sentiment and inclined to live life in exhilarating expectation of the future, all heads of state, from Mobutu to Joseph Kabila, have played the prodigal son with a “Congo is back” mantra – before, inevitably, disappointing. “A patient, humble and listening force” is how Félix Tshisekedi described himself in a recent interview with Le Soir. Long may he remain so.
DRC: Félix Tshisekedi’s difficult balancing act
IN DEPTH
This article is part of the dossier:The balance of power in the new DRC
By in Kinshasa
Posted on Monday, 23 September 2019 18:30, updated on Tuesday, 24 September 2019 14:27
Felix Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, reviews troops during a welcoming ceremony at the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Belgium September 17, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir - RC1B3D881480
Eight months after his inauguration, President Félix Tshisekedi is encircled by his predecessor, trying to battle internal feuds while using his personal popularity to break Kabila's grip.
The white smoke was slow to rise in Kinshasa.
But the government, appointed on 26 August, seven months after Felix Tshisekedi’s inauguration, and “endorsed” by the National Assembly on 6 September, is now operational.
As he reviewed these long months of negotiations, an adviser to the Head of State refers, with some surprise, to the “very cordial relations” between the new President and his predecessor. Might their many meetings in front of the cameras and off-site since January be testament to this relationship? “Joseph Kabila understood that if Felix Tshisekedi failed, it would also cost him,” confides this close friend of the Head of State who prefers anonymity.
Perhaps. There were protracted strong behind the scenes to form a compromise government, whose ability to deliver will be closely scrutinized. For seven months, Joseph Kabila and Felix Tshisekedi, through their respective teams, patiently tried to resolve the differences.
- “Everyone has put up their guardrails,” says a member of the Common Front for Congo (FCC), the coalition formed around Joseph Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD).
The rejection of Gécamines’ boss Albert Yuma’s candidacy for prime minister, the orders issued on Gécamines and the Société nationale des chemins de fer du Congo (SNCC) without consulting the Kabila clan (which has since blocked their application), as well as the remarks of Félix Tshisekedi who, on a visit to Washington in early April, stressed that he was “there to unblock the dictatorial system that was in place”, were seen as ways to affirm the new president’s authority.
Which inevitably led to blockages, proof that the FCC and the Cape for Change (Cach, Félix Tshisekedi’s coalition) continue to test their power.
Ubiquitous Kamerhe
While waiting for the composition of the government, and to fill the void, Félix Tshisekedi focused on structuring a large cabinet: 110 members, including 80 advisors, in 16 groups, five per sector. Among the most central figures of this vast presidency is François Beya, special adviser on security issues.
He is omnipresent behind the scenes, one of the key figures of the Tshisekedi system, along with the powerful and equally omnipresent cabinet director, Vital Kamerhe, who has four deputies. To his closest friends he has always maintained that he is “in the right place” in this position.
An entry into government has never really been an issue for the former President of the National Assembly.
And if the post of Prime Minister was attributed, on May 20, to Sylvestre Ilunga Ilunga Ilunkamba, Félix Tshisekedi’s right-hand man “knows he is more powerful in his position than in the government”, explains an official of the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC, de Vital Kamerhe).
There, in his offices at the Palais de la Nation, the official residence of the President of the Republic, which Félix Tshisekedi has abandoned in favour of the Cité de l’Union africaine, Kamerhe has carved out a role for himself in line with his political influence.
At 60, as part of the partnership he forms with the new head of state, he has experience in “public affairs” and a mastery of the workings of the Kabila system, of which he was for a long time one of the key elements, notably at the head of the victorious 2006 campaign.
“Felix Tshisekedi is still learning. Kamerhe was useful to him in understanding a character that his party had long fought. He is the key man, both for the president and for Kabila,” assures a Cach executive close to Vital Kamerhe. Except that this gearbox is now threatening to jam. Indeed, the presidency – where Felix Tshisekedi had promised to break with the excesses of previous administrations – has been in turmoil for several weeks.
The cause was an arm wrestle with the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF), which threatens the entourage of the president. Kamerhe was accused along with three others in the IGF report on suspected embezzlement of $15m in connection with the handling of compensation for oil companies following the 2017 pump price freeze. Kamehe also requested that the audit of departmental finances and controls on several private companies be suspended.
Pressed by civil society to shed light on this case, Tshisekedi, who promised to end corruption, said he was letting “judicial institutions do their job”. His recent interventions suggest that the time for arbitration has not yet come. His video message broadcast on September 8 or his intervention at the Makutano forum carefully avoided the subject, favouring promises and insisting on the urgency of a “change in mentalities”.
This silence that annoys civil society associations. It is justified among the president’s entourage by a desire not to “expose divisions”. On Twitter, Kasongo Mwema Yamba Y’amba, the Presidency spokesman, said that this silence was more in line with “respect for a democratic principle”.
Because if everything suggests that the two headliners of Cach get along well, the influence of Kamerhe, to which the Head of State submits many of his advisers, is annoying in the ranks of the presidency, where we would like to see “the dircab” take a step back. “He’s an ally, but he’s not a friend,” says a member of the president’s entourage. We don’t know how long he will be satisfied with such a position, so we move one hand in front of a hand behind.”
What future for the Nairobi Agreement?
From rumours about public spending and correspondence leaking on social networks, the annual budget already exceeded since June… Many saw in the difficulties that marked the first six months of the five-year period a lack of preparation of the coalition.
In Kamerhe’s entourage, some people complain of being attacked, given how frequently the name of chief of staff comes up in the so-called “$15m” case.
Suspicion has fallen on the presidency. Some, in the circle of the “dircab”, do not hesitate to openly suspect relatives of the president of being at work behind the IGF scandal to regain influence with the head of state. Others point out that these IGF inspectors were appointed by Tshisekedi’s predecessor and that the “dircab” did not “have only friends at the FCC”.
In these circumstances, it is worth considering the future of the Nairobi Agreement. It has already suffered from negotiations on the formation of the government, which highlighted the differences between UDPS and UNC, with ministries torn at the last minute from one side to the other and a mistrust of each other’s appetite.
Above all, the clause in the agreement that Tshisekedi will support Kamerhe in 2023 seems more hypothetical than ever in these turbulent times.
- For a relative of the Congolese President’s family, there is no doubt that the two men will meet “face to face and no longer side by side” in 2023.
- And some, in the presidency, are pushing for a clarification of the position of the Head of State in favour of investigations, even if it means threatening Vital Kamerhe’s position.
Popularity vs power
Blurry, sometimes cacophonic, this organization nevertheless allowed the president to occupy the field in moments of uncertainty during the negotiations. “With the support of international partners, Félix Tshisekedi had no reason to rush into forming a government in which he knew he would be a minority,” says a Western diplomat. He took the opportunity to build a presidency with advisors in charge of portfolios similar to those of ministers to launch several projects so that the future government would follow in his footsteps. It’s a way to rebalance things.”
Félix Tshisekedi has thus been able to undertake several visible infrastructure projects (such as the road works launched as part of his “100-day programme” in Kinshasa and the provinces), for some $304m (€267.4m), and to increase travel, especially to his eastern neighbours, to discuss security issues.
To Joseph Kabila’s political power — control of the National Assembly, the Senate and 22 of the country’s 26 provinces — which give him undeniable weight, the new president thus wishes to oppose his popularity.
However, propelled to the head of state two months after the creation of the Cach in Nairobi, Tshisekedi and Kamerhe did not have time to structure their coalition. “This will come, the negotiations around the government had taken up most of the time until now,” says Aime Boji, Deputy Secretary General of the UNC.
Not everything was easy during the negotiations.
Discussions on the sharing of the 23 posts allocated to the Cach (out of 65 ministerial posts) were based on the Nairobi Agreement, the birth certificate of this coalition, which provided that if Tshisekedi won the presidential election, the primacy and other strategic portfolios would revert to the UNC.
After the appointment in May of a Prime Minister, Sylvestre Ilunga, from Joseph Kabila’s FCC, Kamerhe claimed half of the 23 portfolios allocated to the Cach. Finally, eight positions were allocated to the NCU.
After heated exchanges, the vice-primature in charge of the Budget, in particular, fell to Vital Kamerhe’s party, which also received no senior ministry, to the surprise of many in Kinshasa.
Containment strategy
With the Senate, the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies in the hands of the FCC, the encirclement strategy for which Joseph Kabila seems to have opted appears to be well in place. It remains to be seen how the Tshisekedi presidency will succeed in imposing its brand, now that the government is appointed and operational.
“It’s a mistrust-confidence marriage,” summarizes one FCC executive. Gradually, trust will take precedence over mistrust.” The head of state will therefore have to fight on two fronts: with his FCC ally and within the presidency, threatened by score settling.
TC.
Spikerama
Regular
Yeah possibly mate could do something along those lines..
I have lots of thoughts too but the thing that is important is the facts.
You can say someone is morally bankrupt as much as you like
or that life in Kinshasa will be shit under Zijin and great under AVZ
but in the end it's just hear say.
We need verifiable facts to hang the ideas off.
We might not include the whole story but if someone delves deeper the thing stacks up.
So what are the facts (abridged versions) on
Under-reporting mining volumes
Human rights. (there's that graph which is pretty shit on twitter cos it's so small and bad badly designed)
Plundering (Sicomines scam probably)
Bribing (Vidiye Tshipanda)
$0 Investment
Also, where's that audio of CKK scamming for 2mill? I might try do something with that.
What other bullet points about him are good factually?
Last edited:
Spikerama
Regular
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