MPs flummoxed by Government Action Program presented by Premier Augustin Matata

The National Assembly held a marathon 10-hour plenary session that

started in the afternoon of Monday and ended at 00:20 of Tuesday.





(As mandated by the Constitution, the prime minister introduces

members of his new cabinet and exposes the government action plan to

the National Assembly, which then approves or rejects both--after

questions and a debate by MPs chosen by their parliamentary groups.

The premier has then from 24 hours to 72 hours to respond to MPs'

queries.)





Members of foreign diplomatic missions accredited to Kinshasa were

present in the first part of the session--lasting about 2 hours--in

which PM Augustin Matata Ponyo introduced his cabinet members and

exposed his action plan.





Matata's action plan--called Modernity Revolution (Kabila's campaign

"vision" for the country)--is very ambitious, as it aims at ushering

the DRC into the club of emergent economies by the end of Kabila's

term in 2016!





Matata claimed the objective of his action plan is to build an

"inclusise system"--Wow! Did the guy read Why Nations Fail?--an

objective with 4 main constituents:





1) To build an efficient state;





2) To develop basic infrastructure and to improve services rendered by

the state;





3) To revive floundering major production sectors; and





4) To build the capacity of human capital and to improve the

population's social welfare.





MPs, including those of the Presidential Majority, were flummoxed by

the plan's glaring lack of numbers and clear benchmarks, its failure

to detail its sources of funding and its heavy reliance on

speculations about foreign contributions to the plan. (Matata put the

cost of the plan at more than $40b spread out over 4 years.) In the

words of one opposition MP, "No statistics, no fancy charts, no

graphs, no histograms. A hollow plan!"





Opposition MPs savaged both the government lineup and the action plan.

One opposition MP said the government didn't reflect the country's

diversity (with "30% of the ministers coming from one province") and

found its make-up to be a striking display of "regionalism, tribalism,

and nepotism"--a jab no doubt at the minister of justice who also

happens to be the prime minister's sister-in-law.





Another MP charged that this cabinet was the "parallel government"

coming out of the closet at long last!





UDPS MP Sammy Badibanga even wanted to see the CVs of the new cabinet members!





Rabble-rouser MLC MP Jean-Lucien Busa called the government action

plan an anticipated "chronicle of an announced failure."





Most opposition MPs were particularly incensed by Matata hoarding his

ertswhile finance ministry--naming his former assistant, Patrice

Kitebi, not as finance minister, but as "Minister Delegate to the

Prime Minister, in charge of Finances"--in effect a fancy name for his

personal aide, one MP quipped.





"Who do you think you are?" an annoyed MP asked the Premier. "Do you

think you're the only Congolese technocrat able to manage the finances

of this country?"





Pro-Kabila MPs countered this argument by arguing that this shows that

Kabila and his new prime minister aren't joking this time around. They

mean business. And the one sure way of meaning business is to tighten

the state's pursestrings and to keep a close watch on the government's

capacity in financial resource mobilization.





Other opposition MPs openly mocked the first constituent of the

government action plan--building an efficient state--at a time when

Jean-Bosco Ntaganda's militiamen and other armed groups

continue--unabated--to wreak havoc in eastern DRC.





Throughout the session, whenever there were harsh attacks against

Kabila, there were cutaway shots to his siblings who are members of

Parliament: his twin sister Jaynet; and his baby brother, Zoe.





At the end of the session, Speaker Aubin Minaku gave Matata 24 hours

to craft his answers to MPs. The plenary session is to resume on

Wednesday at 11:00 Kinshasa time (GMT + 1).





Despite opposition MPs' calls to vote down the action plan, it's a

foregone conclusion that both the cabinet and the action plan will be

approved--Kabila's coalition enjoying a comfortable majority in the

National Assembly.

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Nicolas Le Pen into the trash bin of history

French voters have spoken and, as of 8 p.m. Paris time this Sunday,

Nicolas Sarkozy has been tossed into the trash bin of history.





On March 14, the Wall Street Journal published a caustic editorial

entitled "Nicolas Le Pen." The WSJ was decrying the way Sarko had

"ramped anti-immigrant rhetoric" in a cynical "attempt to woo

supporters of Marine Le Pen's xenophobic National Front ahead of the

first-round poll on April 22."





In between the two rounds, Sarko openly courted Le Pen's supporters,

intensified his anti-immigrant attacks--turning French citizens of

North African and Sub-Saharan extraction as well as Muslims into

scapegoats of all the problems ailing France.





And, when confronted on his turning into a clone of Marinne Le Pen,

Sarko would deadpan: "Just because Madame Marinne Le Pen says the sun

rises in the east that I should deny that fact!"





Sarko's extreme right-wing rhetoric got so venomous that on May 3 the

leader of the center-right party Mouvement Démocrate (Modem), François

Bayrou, who came in 4th in the first round of the presidential

election, took the unprecedented step of endorsing François

Hollande--while disagreeing with the political project of the

socialist candidate (now president-elect) and stopping short of giving

his party members voting instruction on behalf of Hollande.





Said Bayrou:





"I don't want to leave the ballot blank, that would be indecision and

in these circumstances, indecision is impossible. What's left is the

vote for Hollande, this is the choice I'm making."





Adding:





"Nicolas Sarkozy, after a first round's good score, carried out a

pursuit race to the extreme right in which we don't find our values,

in which what we do hold as our most profound and most precious belief

was shaken up and denied in its principle."





Right now in Kinshasa, we're mostly celebrating, not Hollande's

victory, but Sarko being tossed into the trash bin of history!

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God has just broken into this world in Goma: Infant born with letter from Lord Almighty to Raïs Kabila (RTNC)

Shortly before noon today, Léon Elongo Kanda-Kanda, North Kivu

provincial director of state-owned national broadcasting system

(RTNC), appeared on Kinshasa TV to announce auspicious news from Goma.

Kanda-Kanda was appearing on the mid-morning Kabila-mongering show

"701 Congo Histoire" anchored by sycophant Lushima Ndjate.





Kanda-Kanda went on to say that yesterday, Friday 4, at 4 a.m. eastern

DRC time (GMT + 2), at the Virunga quarter of Goma, a midwife

delivered a newborn (gender unspecified) with her left hand clenched

into a fist.





Upon unclenching the newborn's fist, the midwife found a letter in

Swahili from God addressed to "Raïs" Joseph Kabila.





At this juncture of Kanda-Kanda's narrative, a cutaway shot showed and

dwelled on the photocopy of God's handwritten letter to his chosen

son, the Raïs.





I'm shocked to find out that penmanship isn't God's forte. And when

Kanda-Kanda proceeded to read his copy of God's letter, I noted that

God's Swahili syntax is as muddled as His handwriting!





Listening to the confused content of the letter, it suddenly dawned on

me that God might have had one too many of "kanyanga"--the local

moonshine.





Here's the content of God's letter--with humanly- heavily edited syntax:





"Letter from God to Raïs Joseph Kabila Kabange:





Fear not, O my son





I chose you ever since you were in your mother's womb





Let them hate you





Like they hated my son





Jesus Christ





Let them be





Don't be tempted to spill blood





I've chosen you as leader





Stay in command as long as you see fit





I've chosen this illeterate woman to get this message to you





Take good care of her and her newborn;



Spoil them



Blah blah blah

Blah blah blah"





Mark this down folks: God has just most definitely broken into this

world! Which means we're living in Prophetic times! Rapture! Apocalyse

Now!... But fear not, a Messiah is alreay here: name of Raïs!

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Weird recycling tale from eastern Congo: Condoms used as shoe polish and make-up remover in Goma (UhakiNews)

Magguy Kakule, a reporter who writes for the all-female Kivus-based

and IWPR-funded Congolese e-zine UhakiNews, posted a funny story on

March 20 that was only brought to my attention this afternoon.





The story is titled "Goma: Condom comme cirage moins cher" (Goma:

Condom as cheap shoe polish).





Besides the use of condoms by men as shoe polish, Kakule also reports

that condoms' lubricant is also used as make-up remover by young

women.





Well, as it turns out, those condoms are handed out for free by

AIDS-prevention NGOs. Maybe they should now think about adding shoe

polish and cleansing lotions in their AIDS-prevention kits!





Interviewed by Magguy Kakule for the story, Dr. Augustin Mbula, the

North Kivu Provincial Coordinator of the National Multi-sectorial Aids

Prevention Program (acronymed PNMLS in French), didn't find the

practice funny at all.





Dr. Mbula strongly "condems this pratice and deems it a misuse," writes Kakule.





C'mon, doctor, relax! Where's your sense of humor? And, by the way,

doctor, what are you gonna do about about it, sue those weirdoes?

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Why Nations Fail: A depressing read that ought to be a reference book for Congolese politicos

D., the mother of my daughter Elikia, was in Kinshasa this past week

on a business trip.





Having read and re-read all the books I'd brought with me in Kinshasa

from the Boston and Washington over the years, I am desperate for

reading materials, as you can imagine, in a city that has no bookshops

or libraries to speak of.





I was hoping to get from D. maybe one or two novels she'd have carried

in her hand luggage. I got instead tons of books--mostly fantasy and

sci-fi trilogies--downloaded from her Amazon/Kindle account directly

into my PC Kindle virtual library (I still don't have an iPad yet).

With Kinshasa's fickle electricity, it's slow reading indeed.





My reading habit is eclectic: I can jump from, say, Niall Ferguson's

The Ascent of Money to a volume of Harry Potter. In the Kindle batch I

got, I started with Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games Triology for

two obvious reasons: the phenomenal box office the movie version

grossed; and the imprecations it triggered in a memorable movie review

in The New Yorker.





But there's a book D. wanted me to read straightaway: Daron Acemoglu

and James A. Robinson's "Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power,

Prosperity, and Poverty."





Reading the book now--I am currently on page 84 where the historical

example is the DRC, or rather from the Kingdom of Kongo to present-day

post-Mobutu Congo--I realize I wasted my time with The Hunger Games.

I should have started with this seminal work. And if you haven't

purchased this book yet, do the right thing: do it now! It's a

collection and reference book...





This book simply reads like a thriller--what with the treasure-trove

of (often maddening) historical details the authors harness to sustain

their convincing arguments.





The gist of the book is quite simple: a historical qua political

determinism accounting for the "lay of the land" of prosperity and

poverty in today's world.





The authors give short shrift of "theories that don't work," but which

for too long have bamboozled people in trying (and failing) to explain

income and prosperity disparities in the world: 1) the Geography

Hypothesis (Montesquieu, Jeffrey Sachs, Jared Diamond)); 2) the

Culture Hypothesis (Max Weber's "Protestant ethic" for example); or 3)

the Ignorance hypothesis (Lionel Robbins and his economist followers).





If all these theories or hypotheses fail to explain anything, it's

because they can't account for the enduring "institutional legacy" the

mutually exclusive "extractive and inclusive political institutions"

have in determining the prosperity or the poverty of a given nation.

In other words, extractive political institutions beget extractive

economic institutions; and inclusive political institutions beget

inclusive economic institutions.





In the words of the authors,





"To be inclusive, economic institutions must feature secure private

property, an unbiased system of law, and a provision of public

services that provides a level playing field in which people can

exchange and contract; it also must permit the entry of new businesses

and allow people to choose their careers" (74).





Whereas the authors call the opposite of inclusive economic institutions,





"extractive economic institutions [...] because such institutions are

designed to extract incomes and wealth from one subset of society to

benefit a different subset" (76).







This is a radical departure from the newspeak of economic good

governance that is the current ideology of the World Bank and the

International Monetary Fund. Why Nations Fail would also either

invalidate--or validate (a near impossibility in the case of the DRC

(see below)--out of hand so-called elite-centered economic development

projects.







The radical departure here is the precedence political choices (made

by the elites of a nation) take over economic factors in determining

the path to prosperity or to poverty.





And the authors back up their theory with convincing examples: from

Nogales, Arizona (USA) vs. Nogales, Sonora (Mexico); to other examples

worlwide; and down to us here at ground zero of poverty in the Congo,

from the Kingdom of Kongo to post-Mobutu DRC, etc.





In the particular case of the Congo, the Kingdom of Kongo (and its

king Nzinga a Nkuwu) made contact with the Portuguese as early as

1483. The King therafter converted to Catholicism and was introduced

to Western technologies of the wheel and the plow.





But the Kongolese king chose another Western technology instead: the

gun--in order to engage in the lucrative business of slavery:





"The real reason why the Kongolese did not adopt superior technology

was because they lacked any incentives to do so. They faced a high

risk of all their output being expropriated and taxed by the

all-powerful king, whether or not he had converted to Catholicism. In

fact, it wasn't only their property that was insecure. Their continued

existence was held by a thread. Many of them were captured and sold as

slaves--hardly the environment to encourage investment to increase

long-term productivity. Neither did the king have incentives to adopt

the plow on a large scale or to make increased agricultural

productivity his main priority: exporting slaves was so much more

profitable" (60).





The colonial political system came along the same extractive line.





In the case of Congo's Mobutu and post-Mobutu regimes, the authors

point to the impossibility of simultaneity of (or synergy between)

extractive political institutions and inclusive economic institutions

within the same state formation: one set of those has to give:





"Wouldn't it have been better for Mobutu to set up economic

institutions that increased the wealth of Congolese rather than

deepening their proverty? If Mobutu had managed to increase the

prosperity of his nation, would he not have been able to appropriate

even more money, buy Concord instead of renting one, have more castles

and mansions, possibly a bigger and more powerful army? Unfortunately

for the citizens of many countries in the world, the answer is no.

Economic institutions that create incentives for economic progress may

simultaneously redistribute income and power in such a way that a

predatory dictator and others with political power may become worse

off" (83).





As I said, I am still reading the book. But so far, in light of the

theory expounded in Why Nations Fail, the current Congolese political

spiel of "Modernity Revolution" (that would propel the DRC among

emergent economies) sounds hollow to me.





For that kind of revolution to occur, the authors of Why Nations Fail

argue, you need a Weberian strong and centralized State (having the

proverbial "monopoly of legitimate violence") that would impose

uniform constraints, rights, duties, and law upon all citizens

(strong and enduring inclusive political institutions, that is, where

accountability is measurable by citizens' votes that could kick out

politicians from office); and an overnight obliteration of a system

where racketeering elites have so far thrived unimpeded and with total

impunity in the surrounding ocean of universal squalor.





Do Congolese elites have any incentives for what would amount to a

collective mass suicide? I don't think so.





Why Nations Fail is indeed a very depressing read here in Kinshasa...

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Radio-Trottoir Feed: Fatwa against Nicolas Sarkozy in Kinshasa

Kinois were particularly happy to watch Nicolas Sarkozy flounder in

the marathon 3-hour presidential debate with contender François

Hollande on Wednesday night, May 2.



Congolese begrudge Sarkozy for suggesting on two occasions--in 2009

and in 2010--that the recipe for peace in the African Great Lakes

region would be that Congo share its natural resources with Rwanda!

For instance, at a press conference he held in Kigali on February 25,

2010, Sarkozy blurted:



"Anything that makes [Kabila and Kagame] talk to each other, gets them

organized, France supports it; but it's not up to France to tell them

how they'll make peace, what the best way of sharing resources will

be..."



Small wonder then that Kinois were glued to their TV sets last night

to root for François Hollande... and issue dire fatwas against

Sarkozy.

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DRC: Lineup of New and Smaller Cabinet

The new government of the DRC was officially announced in a communiqué

from Kabila's chief of staff read on state-owned RTNC radio and TV

channel in the evening of Saturday, April 28.



Five observations right off the bat:



1) the new government is smaller than the previous one (36 vs. 46);



2) Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo hoards his previous Finance

Ministry portfolio;



3) Lambert Mende Omalanga returns as Information Minister;



4) the injection of new blood in critical ministries; and



5) Six women feature in the new government as ministers and vice-ministers:



Here's the lineup of the new cabinet:



1. Daniel MUKOKO SAMBA, Deputy Prime Minister and Budget Minister;



2. Alexandre LUBA TAMBU, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

and Veterans;



3. Raymond TSHIBANDA, Minister of Foreign Affairs, International and

Regional Cooperation, and Francophony;



4. Richard MUYEJ MANGEZ, Minister of the Interior, Security,

Decentralization, and Customary Affairs;



5. Ms. Wivine MUMBA MATIPA, Minister of Justice and Human Rights;



6. Lambert MENDE, Minister of Media, in charge of Relations with

Parliament, and Initiation to new citizenship;



7. Célestin VUNABANDI, Minister of Planning and Follow-up of

Implementation of Modernity Revolution;



8. Ms. Louise MUNGA, Portfolio Minister;



9. Jean-Paul NEMOYATO, Minister of Economy and Commerce;



10. Fridolin KASWESHI, Minister of Town and Country Planning and

Habitat, Infrastructures, Public Works, and Reconstruction;



11. Justin KALUMBA Mwana Ngongo, Minister of Transportation and Thoroughfares;



12. Bavon NSAMPUTU, Minister of Environment, Conservation of Nature,

and Tourism;



13. Martin KABWELULU, Mining Minister;



14. Bruno KAPANJI, Minister of Water Resources and Electricity;



15. Crispin ATAMA TABE, Oil Minister;



16. Remy MUSUNGAY, Minister of Industry, and Small and Medium-sized

Enterprises;



17. Tryphon KIN-KIEY MULUMBA, Minister of Postal Services,

Telecommunications, and New Information Technologies;



18. Modeste BAHATI, Minister of Employment, Labor, and Social Security;



19. Félix KABANGE Numbi, Public Health Minister;



20. TSHEBO LOTIMA, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research;



21. Maker MWANGU, Minister of Primary, Secondary and Vocational Education;



22. Jean-Chrysostome WAMITI, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development;



23. Robert MBWINGA, Minister of Land Affairs;



24. Charles NAWEJ, Minister of Social Affairs, Humanitarian Action,

and National Solidarity;



25. Ms. Géneviève INAGOSI, Minister of Gender, Family and Child;



26. Jean-Claude KIBALA, Minister of Civil Service;



27. BANZA MUKALAY, Minister of Youth, Sports, Culture and Arts;



28. Patrice KITEBI, Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister, in charge

of Finances;



29. TUNDA Ya KASENDE, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs;



30. Bismass Emile MANGBEGU SWANA, Vice-Minister of International and

Regional cooperation;



31. Egide NGOKOSO, Vice-Minister of Decentralization and Customary Affairs;



32. Ms. SAKINA BINTI, Vice-Minister of Human Rights;



33. Sadock BIGANZA, Vice-Minister of Planning;



34. Roger SHULUNGU, Vice-Minister of Finances;



35. Ms. ABUYUWE ISSA, Vice-Minister of Budget; and



36. Ms. Maguy RWAKABUBA, Vice-Minister of Primary, Secondary and

Vocational Education.

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