National Assembly: Consensus reached but tainted by female MPs' near insurgency

Cool heads finally prevailed in the National Assembly.





A consensus between the opposition and the majority MPs on the issue

of the 2 supercommittes (PAJ and ECOFIN) was finally reached shortly

before the opening of the plenary session of Monday, May 21.





The vote on the contentious issue, with the opposition threatening to

withdraw its participating from the parliamentary committees at the

plenary session of Saturday, was averted at the last minute.





The formula worked out between the leaders of parliamentary caucuses

was the following: while pro-Kabila MPs will chair those 2

supercommittees, the opposition MPs will be embedded in them as their

ranking members in two key positions: 1) First Vice-president; and 2)

Rapporteur.





A vote was then called to fill the 35 posititons of the 7

committees--with a few other positions left vacant; and subcommittees

still to be set up.





Thus opposition firebrand, MP Christian Badibangi, was elected 1st VP

president of the Political, Administrative and Judiciary Committe

(PAJ). The Sociocultural Committee chairmanship went to opposition

female MP Bazaiba (MLC).





There are two committees chaired by the opposition: the Sociocultural

Committee chaired by MP Bazaiba, and National Planning and

Infrastructures Committee.





The plenary session of the afternoon of Tuesday, May 22, opened with

female MPs sitting in the front rows of the hemicycle in Congress Hall

of the Palais du Peuple.





That chivalry extended by Speaker Aubin Minaku did nothing to diffuse

the wrath of female MPs, who felt cheated by the power grab of their

male counterparts.





No sooner had Speaker Minaku gavelled in the plenary session than MP

Adèle Kayinga of the Presidential Majority launched a scathing attack

against the male-dominated National Assembly with her incidental

motion.





"Is it normal," MP Kayinga seethingly asked, "to have only one woman

in all those commissions?"





"It's not normal!" MP kayinga answered her own rhetorical question.





She went on to "denounce" on record the lack of "female

representation" in those committees.





Another female MP said the composition of committees evinced the fact

that "gender discrimination rules in our country."





MLC MP Germain Kambinga, while sympathizing with the plight of

"charming" female MPs of the Presidential Majority, urged them to

henceforth stop accepting being used as "human shields" whenever the

majority finds it expedient to further its political designs in

Parliament.

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Public transport operators on strike: Kinshasa pedestrians without Spirits-of-Death

Millions of Kinois pedestrians had to walk today, the start of the

strike of public transport operators.



(I had to walk close to 5 miles from my house to Place Victoire this

morning. By the time I go back home, if there are still no taxis, I

would have walked 10 miles today.)





The striking transporters are complaining about the "tracasseries"

(hassles) they are subjected to.





Typical daily tracasseries involve:





1) Paying 500 Congolese Francs (about 50 cents) to each one of the

highway cops encountered at jammed intersections on the bus route;





2) Paying fines (without receipts of the fines paid) to agents of

public transportation authority or to any other agent in uniform, lest

the bus is impounded;





3) Paying more "fines" to agents of SONAS, the national insurance

company that has a countrywide monopoly on insurance;





4) Buying the expensive new biometric driver's license; and, last and

not least,





5) Compliance with new safety requirements being imposed on owners of

the imported second-hand Mercedes-Benz delivery vans of the model

series ranging from 207 to 308 with cargo box bodies, used here as

buses, and which the Kinois have nicknamed "207 esprits-de-mort"--or

spirits of death, due to the grim death tolls they continue to reap on

Kinshasa thoroughfares.





Esprits-de-mort Mercedes-Benz delivery vans are stifling clungers

retrofitted with between 6 to 8 rows of wooden benches.





With each bench sitting 4 passengers, a typical van crams up to 32

people--plus the lucky 2 persons sitting on the passenger seat by the

driver.





Oh, I forgot to count the 6 non-paying passengers clinging for their

lives on the outside of the van: 3 on the side where there's the door

to the cargo box; and 3 on the back.





No one knows whether this strike would be sustainable enough for

public transportation operators to stretch it for days on end.





Kinois pedestrians, on their part, are angry at both camps: at the

authorities for the daily tracasseries of drivers by uniformed and

plainclothes goons, as well as for not providing decent public

transport to the "residents of the Republic"; and at public transport

owners for grounding their Spirits of Death in a city that has spread

far and wide beyond the narrow imagination of urban planners--bloated

before blasting into an anarchic monster.

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National Assembly: Opposition boycott looms over Monday vote on control of supercommittees

The scrum between opposition and pro-Kabila MPs over the control of

two key committees (dubbed "permanent commissions") continued at the

plenary session of Saturday, May 19.





The two supercommittes being disputed are: the PAJ (Political,

Administrative, and Judiciary Committee) and the ECOFIN (the Economic

and Financial Committee).





Opposition MPs, hell-bent on controlling those two supercommittees--or

barring one of them, the chairmanship of the strategic Committee on

Defense and Security--couldn't budge MPs of the majority, dead set

against what they see as unbridled ambition utterly unjustified by the

strength of their rivals in the National Assembly.





As the two sides couldn't come to a consensus, Speaker Aubin Minaku

decided to have the matter put to a vote in the plenary session of

Monday, May, 21.





A move denounced by the opposition, which is aware that the odds in

such an event would be stacked up against them.





Opposition MPs wanted instead Speaker Minaku to clam down on his

fellow coaltion MPs and have them see eye to eye with the opposition!





Speaker Minaku rejected this proposition and maintained the vote for Monday.





Opposition MPs are concerned that allowing this total control by the

majority of those supercommittees would open the door to reckless

constitutional changes allowing Kabila to stand for a third term, and

total lack of oversignt over government.





Be that as it might, the outcome of Monday vote can safely be

forecast: there's no way these supercommittees will ever be given to

the opposition.

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DRC GOV spokesman Lambert Mende: Full brunt of law for media outlets giving platform to terrorists Jean-Bosco Ntaganda and associates

In a news conference he held Friday, May 18, Media Minister and

Government Spokesman Lambert Mende came out swinging against media

outlets who'd be tempted to give a platform to "terrorists" Jean-Bosco

Ntaganda and his associates roaming the hills and the natural

preserves of the Kivus.





He warned that journos who'd dare to call and give interviews to

"those who kill Congolese, rape, and eviscerate pregnant women" will

feel the full brunt of the law of the land.





He bristled at the description by journalists of Ntaganda and his

followers as "insurgents" and "mutineers"--insisting renegade General

Ntaganda and officers around him are "terrorists" who've kidnapped

young men under their command and are now forcibly enlisting child

soldiers.





Pressed to explain why the government had previously shielded Ntaganda

against prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Mende

angrily retorted that "in politics, one plus one doesn't necessarily

equal two."





Mende pointed out that Ntaganda wasn't at first arrested because he's

a "criminal" who'd helped fending off a far worse menace represented

by Laurent Nkunda, another "criminal"! (A most bizarre rationale

indeed.)





Moreover Ntaganda brought to the fold of the Republic thousands of

young "compatriots," many of whom are hounding him today.





"Just imagine the threat [Ntaganda] would be representing today had he

still had under his command thousands of soldiers, instead of the few

hundreds he's got today," Mende argued.





Of the 350 soldiers Ntaganda had at the onset of his terrorist spree,

304 have rejoined the FARDC, Mende said. The military outlook of

Ntaganda is so bleak he's resorted to forcibly recruiting child

soldiers.





Adding:





"Ntaganda has now only less than 10% of the elements of his regiments

at his disposal. His clandestine weapon caches have been dismantled."





Asked to comment as to why the CNDP-- whose political leaders hold the

government responsible for the renewed spate of violence and who've

offered to be a "bridge" for talks between the government and the M-23

militia (an offer the government turned down)--still belongs to

Kabila's political alliance of the Presidential Majority, Mende said

that Speaker Aubin Minaku ought to draw the consequences of that

paradoxical situation.

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Cuban VP Esteban Lazo Hernandez on a 4-day visit in Kinshasa

 Cuban VP Esteban Lazo Hernandez

(credits)

Cuban Vice-president Esteban Lazo Hernandez arrived in Kinshasa in the evening of Thursday, May 17, on 4-day visit in the Congolese capital.

Not coincidentally, Hernandez's arrival occurred on the 15th anniversary of the fall of Kinshasa to Mzee Laurent Kabila's forces and their Rwandan and Ugandan allies.

Hernandez and Joseph Kabila held talks in the morning of Friday to discuss bilateral "commercial relations" and cooperation in the areas of "education, health, electricity," the Cuban vice-president told the press as he emerged from his meeting with Kabila.

Friday afternoon, Hernandez stood wreaths at Mzee Kabila's mausoleum  and at the foot of Patrice Lumumba's monument. A state dinner, hosted by Prime Minister Matata Ponyo, was to be given for the Cuban vice-president Friday evening.

Joseph Kabila visited Havana for the first time in September of last year, flying in from New York where he'd attended the UN General Assembly. Kabila had a stopover in Havana to unveil the bust of his father, Mzee Kabila, at the Parque de los Próceres Africanos [Park of African Heroes]. As I stated in my post of 28 September 2011, the other Congolese hero at that park is Patrice Lumumba.

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1) Gridlock in National Assembly; and 2) Out-of-control Secretary General MARIE-JEANNE ALULA, at the Ministry of Higher Education

1) Gridlock in National Assembly





Gridlock has been marring the National Assembly of late.





The contention is over the sharing of the chairmanships of the 7

permanent commissions and over the political make-up of the 35 members

of those commissions.





The opposition was offered 10 seats in those commissions, whereas the

majority planned on keeping for themselves the lion's sharea: 25

seats. The opposition rejected that offer and wants at the very least

12 seats.





Furthermore, opposition MPs also want to have the chairmanship of two

key commissions: 1) the Political, Administrative and Judicial

Commission (acronymed PAJ in French); and 2) the Economic and

Financial Commission (ECOFIN). A non-starter for the Presidential

Majority (MP).





Besides this wrangle with the opposition, things are further

complicated by the lack of consensus between the different caucuses

within the Presidential Majority as to which groups these individual

commissions should go to and, again, which MPs should sit in those

commissions.





A rift within the majority that was revealed by MP Ramazani Shadari,

the head of the PPRD parliamentary group, at the plenary session of

May 16.





In an unprecedented plea that put on public display the gridlock, MP

Ramazani Shadari wanted Speaker Aubin Minaku to personally intervene

so as to help settle the disagreements within the majority and the

discord between the latter and the opposition.





Speaker Minaku declined to intervene, reminding MP Ramazani that his

role was by no means to "impose a consensus" but to facilitate

contacts between various groups.





The plenary session slated for today at noon, to resolve these

contentious issues, has been postponed for tomorrow at 10am Kinshasa

time (GMT + 1).





***





2) Out-of-control Secretary General MARIE-JEANNE ALULA, at the

Ministry of Higher Education





Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo is praised for the discipline he

wants to instill into his change-proof cabinet members.





It's reported that Matata typically opens his cabinet meetings at

7:30am, and any minister who arrives one minute later is denied access

to the meeting.





Matata is said to be uncompromisingly strict on punctuality. And a few

ministers were once again at the receiving end of Matata's strictness

at the second "technical meeting" of his cabinet on Monday, May 14.





(Kabila chairs ordinary cabinet meetings in the presence of Matata,

whereas the latter holds so-called technical meetings in which precise

government's plans, benchmarks and timetables are discussed and

implemented.)





It's rumored that in the first technical meeting, Lambert Mende was

shut off of the meeting for latedness, which is ironic, considering

that one of his new charges--besides Media and Relations with

Parliament--is the (much-mocked by the opposition) "Initiation to the

new citizenship," which is intended to mold the new disciplined

Congolese persona!





But it seems that the real test of Prime Minister Matata will be to

discipline the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research,

where Secretary General MARIE-JEANNE ALULA has literally been running

amok since March 1, when she was reassigned to the Ministry of Gender

and Family by the former Minister of Civil Service.





Marie-Jeanne Alula has proven to be a powerful lady indeed.





Refusing to abide by the ministerial ordnance, Alula had, on May 9,

the Appeal Court of Kinshasa-Gombe seal the doors to the offices of

the personnel she deemed to be working against her interests--all the

while placing threatening phone calls against them.





When the sidelined personnel broke into their offices, Ms. Alula had

locks to those offices changed nightly on May 10.





On May 15, the personnel who had removed those seals were unlawfully

shadowed by police detectives and arbitrarily detained.





Yesterday, I was on the grounds of the campus of Kinshasa University

to talk about the ongoing soap opera at the Ministry of Higher

Education to two mid-level managers of the university, who, strangely,

only accepted to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity.





They told me Ms. Alula is a corrupt official who usually dips into the

funds earmarked for the university. She's also a nepotist, they said,

who employs two of her unqualified daughters in her cabinet.





So much for the new style of governance being preached by Prime

Minister Matata. Also: Either the new Minister of Higher Education,

Bonaventure Chielo Lutsima--freshly from Orientale Province--is a

spineless incompetent provincial doofus; or Ms. Marie-Jeanne Alula is

protected by the very powers-that-be that are bamboozling the

citizenry with empty words about "new citizenship" and "modernity

revolution!"

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National Assembly confirms government composition and action plan; and interlocutory motion by MP Jaynet Kabila passes

As could be anticipated, the National Assembly confirmed the

government's composition and action plan in the plenary session of

Wednesday, May 9.





With 388 MPs present at the moment of the vote, 324 MPs voted aye, and

53 no, the government and its action plan--with 11 MPs abstaining.





Prior to the vote, dozens of opposition MPs left in protestthe

hemicycle of the National Assembly.





Opposition MPs firmly believed that Kabila and Matata had conspired to

have the Finance Minister's status downgraded to a mere "Minister

Delegate, in charge of Finances."





They were therefore demanding that the National Assembly either send

back Kabila and Matata to the drawing board, or take the matter to the

Supreme Court of Justice that would then rule on the consitutionality

of the status of what they saw as the absence of the finance ministry

in the new government.





Matata's response to this objection irked the opposition hardliners in

the National Assembly.





Said Matata:





"[The structure and the composition of the government] are contingent

and respond to the imperatives as well as the constraints of the

moment. [...]





And the presence of a Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister in

charge of finances doesn't stem from any subjective consideration, but

rather from a contextualized assumption of responsibility, while

respecting the Constitution and the laws of the Republic."





As a matter-of-fact, the Constitution is mum on the structure and

composition of the government--as Matata pointedly reminded the MPs,

by referring them to Article 90 (Section 5) of the constitution.





Another memorable moment of the plenary session was the interlocutory

motion introduced by the president's twin sister, MP Jaynet Kabila,

following Matata's response to MPs' queries. Her motion, requiring the

government to integrate a national census in its action, was adopted

by the National Assembly. The last countrywide scientific census dates

back to 1984.

Read More