Sumwina Government 1: suggested avenues to straighten out the DRC
Unless there is a last minute change, the inauguration of the Suminwa government will take place this Tuesday, June 11, 2024.
Emerging from the womb after severe labor pains, this team led for the first time by a woman, is the dream of many Congolese.
On the eve of the 64th anniversary of the country's accession to national and international sovereignty, some hope that the DRC will experience a decisive turning point.
It is true that the challenges are very numerous and enormous.
Everything seems to be a priority in the country.
Ms. Suminwa and her team will face a serious problem in prioritizing these priorities.
Where should you start? The restoration of state authority?
Basic infrastructure? Health ?
The end of the war in the East and the eradication of all small armed groups?
The fight against corruption for the establishment of good governance?
This list is not exhaustive as there are many other challenges for which ordinary citizens expect suitable solutions.
Labors of Hercules
Faced with these Herculean works, the government which will be invested in the following hours will have no time to lose.
As soon as approved by those elected to the lower house of Parliament, it will have to immediately get to work to translate into action the six axes of the program for the second five-year term of FĂ©lix Antoine Tshisekedi.
The task is arduous and the expectations of the population are numerous.
For this, it is important to carry out a general mobilization so that everyone gets their hands dirty.
Therefore, the government must not neglect the work of changing the mentality of citizens.
They are forced to understand that they are not spectators, but rather active players in the development of their country.
The Ministry of Youth and New Citizenship has a lot to do in this area.
The role of churches
In the same vein, the churches which abound in the DRC are called to innovate in their evangelization.
Faced with the anti-values that undermine society, those we call “men of God” must imperatively change the content of their preaching.
Today, their preaching is oriented towards the request for visas, marriages, jobs, and what else do we know while at this moment when the country is going through a lean period, the strategy must consist of raising awareness among the population to invest in development activities.
Instead, we experience spectacles where the faithful are held for hours in worship to ask God to bring down manna from heaven, while the Holy Scriptures emphasize that man must feed himself with the sweat of his forehead.
It is a call for sacrifices that churches must make to their faithful.
Furthermore, it is established that most of the perpetrators of embezzlement of public funds and other reprehensible acts are believers seen in churches.
The tax non-compliance that we deplore is caused by those who follow the Holy Scriptures every day or every Sunday.
Likewise, parents who cover up the acts of banditry of their delinquent children are recruited from among those who regularly attend places of prayer.
Furthermore, the unsanitary condition in which most of our churches are floundering proves sufficiently that the teachings given in these churches are of low level.
From now on, they must become aware of their role in the development of the DRC, instead of being “the opium of the people”.
Better supervision of young people
Young people must also be mobilized in this fight.
For this, the authorities are invited to lead a relentless fight against all those who lead this category of society into delinquency, in particular sellers of drugs and other strong liquors.
They must be repressed with all rigor.
The Suminwa government raises a lot of hope among the population.
If the DRC misses this turn, the future of the country will be more than uncertain.
This is a scenario that the Congolese would not like to experience.
mediacongo
*I think we all know and have known for some time who the perpetrators of embezzlement of public funds and other reprehensible acts are
The DRC, 4th poorest country in the world: “this must concern us”
According to the latest IMF-Global Finance report of 2024, the Democratic Republic of Congo is the fourth poorest country in the world.
Unable to remain indifferent to this situation, Eugène Diomi Ndongala gave, Monday June 10, 2024, during an interview with MCP, some possible solutions to get the country out of the drift.
The national president of the Christian Democracy (DC) believes that it is important to promote the virtuous circle between peace, development and the rebuilding of the State, with the proposal of a new social contract based on the fight against “destructive predation”.
The decline of a state
To develop its ranking, Global Finance based itself on GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita, as shown in the most recent IMF report.
“This must concern us!” exclaims Diomi, who thinks that it would undoubtedly be recommended that Congolese leaders ask themselves the right questions about the causes of the decline of a country so well endowed with natural resources, in order to “ vivisect" the large sick body of Congo-Kinshasa and understand its illness.
The Congolese paradox
In Congo, the inhabitants are poor while the country is rich: 75% of Congo's inhabitants live below the poverty line.
The subsoil of Congo is among the richest in the world thanks to its mining resources (diamond, copper, tin, coltan, cobalt, gold, etc.).
The country also has abundant forest resources as well as fertile soils, ideal for agriculture.
Today, mineral exports represent more than 90% of the country's exports, and more than half go to China.
But these mining resources only constitute 30% of tax revenue today.
“Bad governance and corruption have something to do with the decline of the State,” he believes.
Minerals in the DRC are a bit like oil in Venezuela.
This rent creates, paradoxically, a cycle of inflation and corruption, according to raw materials specialists, rather than enriching the country.
Agricultural production, for its part, slowed to growth of 2.2% in 2023 (compared to 2.4% in 2022), making the food autonomy of the DRC even more volatile, ever more dependent on imports.
“Finally, an escalation of the war in the east and continued political volatility only worsen the economic situation,” he adds.
And to continue, "behind an unstable political situation, also due to elections undermined by electoral fraud, a dark financial horizon emerges.
All Congolese indicators are red.
These disruptions in economic balance are almost always the consequence of bad governance:
Unaccountable or non-responsive institutions, inequitable access to services and resources, lack of inclusive participation in democratization processes and weak capacity of civil society and political opposition (often marginalized and entrenched) to address these challenges ".
Resistance to reforms, although they are essential
The DRC presents, in fact, a textbook case of resistance to reforms which, it must be admitted, "have not been seriously considered in recent years, even though they prove essential."
The reforms are well cited in the various government programs. But, in reality, they are not implemented.
In other words, “the recurring evils of our political life are known: we find “petty corruption” alongside “major corruption”, nepotism, influence peddling, abuse of corporate assets, crime of interference, but also looting in its violent forms, especially in conflict zones.
The rebuilding of the Congolese state must be characterized by an end to impunity.
The strong should not be immune and the weak sacrificed. Therefore, the law must apply to everyone in the same way.
The scourge of corruption is omnipresent and must be fought
Corruption from below is designated by multiple euphemisms which clearly show that it is a practice that has become commonplace: bribes, sweethearts, kickbacks, illegal commissions, monitoring costs, motivation, invisible cooperation. ..
The level of abuse among police officers, for example, is 97%, according to a 2010 University of Kinshasa survey, not updated to date.
The right of elites to “pick”
“From the top to the bottom of the state apparatus, the assimilation of a position of power to a right to “pick” is becoming widespread,” notes Diomi.
The result is the ruin of public goods and services, hyperinflation, negative growth and a destructive headlong rush that impoverishes the Congolese.
Political actors, for their part, often do not have very precise ideological references, as is the case of the political groups which constitute the current majority of the USN (Sacred Union of the Nation).
They are above all attached, once "elected", to managing their interests and their alliances, within the framework of power sharing.
Faced with them, voters, once they have received the payment for their vote, hardly use the modest information available to supervise the implementation of the campaign commitments of elected officials.
Especially since the use of privatized voting machines, at the time of recent elections, makes voters completely useless vis-à -vis the “elected officials” who are only beholden to the system of patronage which placed them in power!
Diomi asks the leaders of the DRC to take ownership of good governance without which the restoration of peace would be non-existent.
Food, water, electricity, education, health care and housing constitute basic fundamental needs that the State must ensure for the achievement of social and distributive justice allowing the Congolese people to live in a balanced society.
One of the essential conditions is to economically insure the population by providing it with basic needs for survival: food, health, housing, educational institutions, etc.
The DRC is virtually rich, considering its potential.
But as the current war has the effect of focusing the available energies and attention of the State on it, the minimum conditions for achieving this objective are only possible at the end of hostilities.
In other words, peace in the DRC is strictly linked to political and economic parameters: corruption, electoral fraud, tribalism, nepotism only aggravate the impoverishment of the country and its exposure to war, because of its unstructured army, a failing administration and a security of the country weakened by the lack of means, absorbed by systemic corruption and the extravagant lifestyle of the leaders of the institutions.
L.M.
mediacongo