EngRegional
DRC mismanagement has cost citizens $1bn in development funding
May 2023 will
leave an indelible mark on the people of DRC. It is the month in which the
World Bank suspended $1 billion worth of funding for humanitarian and development
projects owing to the mismanagement of state affairs by President Felix
Tshisekedi.
More than
600,000 beneficiaries will be affected by this latest mess by Tshisekedi. The
cause of the suspension is that funds worth $91 million from the bank could not
be accounted for after being siphoned by Tshisekedi and his cronies.
How can a poor
country like DRC afford to waste such a great financing opportunity that would
have greatly contributed to solving their many problems? But again, the answer would be simple for anyone who follows the
management style of President Tshisekedi and his cabal. While it is true
that he inherited a country that was in an appalling state, the reality is that
things have more than worsened under his leadership. Corruption has flourished,
from his own office down to the most decentralized levels of the country.
Tshisekedi who,
in 2019, promised an end to the widespread corruption that had blighted the
reign of his predecessor, Joseph Kabila, quickly got exposed when a video of
his top advisor and one-time spokesperson for his election campaign, Vidiye
Tshimanga, surfaced showing him negotiating a bribe for a mining deal. In a
secretly-taped meeting, the aide said he was acting on behalf of his boss,
Tshisekedi.
At the time, Tshisekedi
issued a statement, which read in part: “Any person, including within the
office of the President, whose behavior has violated the law…will suffer the
consequences.”
If DRC was a law abiding country, the President himself should be
the first to suffer such consequences. But who within his regime would survive?
It is hard to tell.
Asked about the
unaccounted $91 million that had been disbursed to the government of DRC by the
World Bank as part of the bigger $1 billion, presidential spokesperson Tina
Salama failed to respond on the missing documentation.
This situation
leaves room for only two possibilities; the first one would be to conclude that
DRC has an inept presidency that is incapable of managing the vast country and
consequently creates loopholes for all the malpractices to thrive.
However, one
would question the veracity of this theory on the account that all key state
institutions cannot be doomed to the extent that you fail to find even one
person questioning the recurrent excesses by the Tshisekedi administration.
The most
plausible explanation is therefore the fact that President Tshisekedi has
invested his time in eliminating all the potential barriers that would impede
him from running the state the way he wants, by creating a pool of loyalists
to his state management that would be supportive of all his attempts without
any objective scrutiny.
The judiciary,
the legislature and his government officials are all selected by him to suit
his machiavellian plan.
Even those who
claim to oppose him, such as Dr Denis Mukwege who, ironically, is cited amongst
the victims of the World’s Bank fund suspension through his Panzi Hospital are
no different from Tshisekedi. Should he become President of the DRC, Mukwege would be no different.
Mukwege
described the fund cancellation as bad news, saying that the situation was
“catastrophe for the victims” as he was quoted by Reuters. Perhaps, the
biggest catastrophe that the World Bank should have noticed is the fact that
Mukwege has been absent from his humanitarian works and spends more time
politicking across the world and investing his time in propaganda. Often
taking advantage of his famous foundation and the work it has done in the past
to twist facts and attract financial support and sympathy from financial
institutions and from world leaders.
President
Tshisekedi has certainly failed to eradicate the widespread corruption that blights
the country’s administration. His leadership flaws have only worsened the
situation making it almost irreparable.
External financing
of development projects in DRC by international financial institutions is with no doubt a
mismanagement of public funds itself.
Until DRC is
blessed with competent leaders, external funds will always land in individual pockets
like is the case with Tshisekedi and associates.
