Times past

Here’s the shortest ever - a Christmas special.

You are in the offices of a commune with a population of 260,000 – a subdivision of the City of Lubumbashi, probably the most prosperous city per head of any in the DRC. The commune is responsible for a huge range of different matters such as providing markets and community centres, ensuring the provision of education and health services, social welfare and the like.

There are four offices: that of the Bourgmestre (the boss) and just three others, all opening out onto a narrow access veranda.

The accountant (for there is only one) is asleep at his desk, because there’s no money either coming in or going out.

To one side of the accountant’s office is the office of civil registries. Beside the entrance door is a poster: Register your birth here: IT IS FREE! There is a steady stream of people waiting. They are unusually quiet and respectful because there should be no noisy quarrelling at such an important occasion. The events are lovingly entered into massive tomes provided by UNICEF.

The accountant’s slumber is interrupted by an insistent tapping. It is coming from the office on the opposite side – that of the Commune Secretary who is writing a letter. For this he has hauled out his ancient typewriter, and is banging out the words, letter by letter, his fingers hovering, ever so slowly, over each letter before pecking it fiercely. The typewriter itself, like the steam engines on the railways, the post offices throughout the country and much else that we see daily, is a much depredated survival of the Belgian past. It is virtually the only machine in the whole office. There are no computers, no air conditioners, often no power, and indeed not even any filing cabinets (everything lies on rickety shelves).

It is no surprise that the letter, so kindly written on our behalf, is exactly like those fake examples of old typewriters much loved by advertising agents and movie makers, where the letters are purposely out of alignment thus giving the page “character”.

I’d love to reproduce the resulting letter we received, but cannot for obvious reasons of confidentiality. But to give you an idea of what it’s like, here’s a part of it.

Happy Christmas

A captivating tale

When the notorious M23 rebels were about to capture Goma, the guards at its Munzenze prison decided to get out while the going was good. From what we understand their last act was to hand the keys to one of the prisoners so that their captives could follow their example, which they did.  All 1,175 of them.

The prison was built by the Belgians at least 60 years ago to accommodate 150 prisoners. It had been allowed to get into such a bad state that it received the attention of the American Bar Association which went so far as to provide funds to improve it. The UN peace-keeping force had also made some additions. But in spite of that its reputation was nothing short of grisly.

To return to the story. Prison guards are generally considered to be OK types, so after their “escape” they could mingle freely with the townsfolk and quickly vanish. For the prisoners it was a different story. For many members of the public the idea of having thieves, rapists and murderers wandering around their streets was too much, especially when they were unsure whether the M23 was friend or foe. This created, according to the news reports, a state of psychosis as well as an opportunity for revenge, so the hapless prisoners’ freedom was marred by being beaten up. Eight were lynched to the extent of being killed.

Meanwhile, the opportunistic public, always on the lookout for something free, looted the prison, taking bedding, doors, windows, fittings and furniture. By the time the M23 left the town the prison resembled the aftermath of a massive bombing raid.

The prisoners were mortified. They had lost their home and their restaurant service, but they appealed to the authorities to allow them back. This “patriotic” gesture was warmly welcomed by the Governor of the Province who provided them with mattresses, blankets and food. However, many still remain unaccounted for, so he has promised a reduction in the sentences of those who come back home soon.

Isn’t that sweet?

Doing business

The latest “Ease of Doing Business” study has been published by the World Bank. Not surprisingly the Congo is 178 in the world, 5 from the bottom. The documents shows that in the DRC’s case the total value of taxes payable adds up to 339.7% of profit (compared to, for example, the UK where it is 37.3%), and will take 336 hours to manage per year. Importing a container takes on average 63 days at the port of entry, and costs $3,285. (It’s 6 days in the UK).

It was a nice surprise to meet an aid worker who’s here to try and improve the business climate. He’s not expecting to revolutionise things in one go, but hopes that by the time he leaves, the DRC will at least be better in some respects. He’s lucky to have job that can make a discernable difference, and good luck to him.

Meanwhile, you can’t help thinking that if life’s so tough for business why does anyone come here?

But they do. Last year we boggled, with incredulity, at a shiny new billboard on the main road into town:

“Welcome to the new Kinshasa” it said. “Announcing the Cité du Fleuve, a new exclusive island in the middle of the Congo River.”

And to prove that they weren’t lying there was an artist’s impression of a Dubai style island development, right in the middle of the mighty river. What wishful thinking!!

But little by little news trickled out that work had actually begun. Huge dredgers were creating the island by pumping vast quantities of sand just to the north of the main city. Someone said it was being funded by a British hedge fund, which put a totally new perspective on it.

And then, this invitation arrived in our email boxes. “Enjoy fabulous pizzas at the Cité du Fleuve” complete with a photo to prove that it existed.

So, one Saturday, off we go. The journey takes one through some rough areas which makes one wonder whether they’ll ever attract the sort of client they need, but suddenly you are driving on a causeway onto the island which already has tarred roads, street lights and other symbols of modern development.

The pizza place is not much more than a small kiosk, but it serves attractive tables under large umbrellas at the water’s edge. As you sit you can watch regular traffic of dug-out canoes bringing supplies to Kinshasa. On the inland side of the road they are building the new houses.

As if to prove a point about the problems of working here, the developer has opted for steel pre-fabricated houses. There’s one completed already and several more are going up. They’re very nice, middle income type houses – not as fancy as the billboard suggested.

Their logic is that although importing stuff is slow and expensive, it’s less hassle than dealing with endless unreliable suppliers. But what a wasted opportunity for developing local skills and manufacturers! I wonder if the business climate were better whether they would have taken that decision.

One day

Here are a few incidents to provide a flavour of life here.

(source for most of the stories, staff reports)

·  In Goma, where all the fighting is taking place: teachers are challenging the M23 rebels to pay them, as the M23 won’t allow government staff to enter the city. Meanwhile a band of ten policemen, not impressed by the fact that the 10,000 strong Congolese Army, already mobilized in the region, cannot retake the city, enters Goma secretly by boat from Lake Kivu to re-establish the power of the government in the city.

·  In Bukavu, a non-government organisation has decided to go into pastures new by founding a University. For their campus they have chose a large house that used to be their office. They promise to deliver bachelor’s degrees in three years (as opposed to four years at the state universities) in subjects as unusual as choreography and music as well as conventional ones such as law and education. This accelerated and novel curriculum has excited the attention of many students. But their joy may be short-lived: the Minister of Education has pointed out that they have neither requested nor received accreditation and might be closed down.

·  In Bandundu, a newly elected Governor of the Province decides to make his mark by ordering that all schools within the town of Bandundu must be cleaned. He gives the staff and children three days in which to complete the job. It is not clear when they will next be cleaned, or why it takes an order from on high to get someone to clean them.

·  In Katanga, teachers from one of the rural parts of the province have not been paid since 2010. They “are considering” going on strike.

·  In another part of Katanga, efforts by the UN Peace Keepers to disarm some well-establish bandits failed when the UN contingent from Benin, who were supposed to be leading the action, decided it was too dangerous and left in haste.

·  In Kinshasa, an unusual disaster struck. The high profile politician, Kengo wa Dondo, (who is President of the Senate, and is best known for being hospitalised for a week after being attacked at the Gare du Nord in Paris by Congolese dissidents shortly after the DRC Elections in November), was taking his usual evening constitutional along the river. To compensate for his somewhat effeminate bearing, and his unpopularity, he surrounds himself with five bodyguards with whom he has nothing in common except proximity.

But today was to be different. Their walk was interrupted by a deafening crash: his bodyguards went into close formation and his normal dour expression was replaced by sheer fright.

Fortunately the crash was nothing more than a massive branch breaking off a tree. Much to his relief the car underneath was not his. (see picture)

(Note: the owner of the car returned about 15 minutes after the event. He organised the many bystanders to lift up the branches to allow him to drive out, and within minutes he and his somewhat dented car were gone – he laughing at life’s absurdities.)

Success stories

If you are not in the mood for cynicism, read no further. But if, like me, you share not only exasperation about the failure of the Congo to pull itself from poverty, warfare, corruption and chaos, but also a sense of helplessness, read on.

What is one to do with a country where the General leading a campaign to defeat an armed rebellion chooses to sell arms to the enemy? What is one to do with a country that is so dependent on international aid that it has basically surrendered all responsibility for its own services?

This thought was triggered by a realisation that international donors are so desperate to claim results that they clutch at the tiniest response from the recipients of their aid as “a success”.

We have a nice example. As part of the gender sensitive principles of our donor, we thought it would be a good idea to help a group of women in the public service to become advocates for equality and non-discrimination. This in a country where women members of parliament are a rarity, and those in high public office can be counted on one hand. So it’s pretty obvious there’s work to be done.

The initiative went down well: a group of women from five provinces decided there’s definitely need for something of this sort. After a three day workshop, broken at regular intervals for refreshments, they adopted hopeful resolutions and elected a committee to draft a constitution and finalise the planning of the first year’s activities.

Hold your breath – this is a big one: the committee met more than once WITHOUT asking us to pay for their transport or refreshments. Now that is what we call SUCCESS. Not what they did, but the fact that they didn’t ask us for money.

Like all good donors, ours looks over its shoulder at the electorate back home. There is a big PR job to be done to demonstrate that the millions being spent are making a difference, and anything that can be called a success must be written up and made available to the general public.

So, without any ado we get down to writing a one page summary of how this remarkable event occurred and without any shame classify it as a SUCCESS STORY, one of a regular stream of similar flimsy claims. The donor loves it.

Looking at the whole situation from the point of view of the Congo and its peoples, one cannot help asking whether their heavy reliance on donor funding is not a product of the well-intentioned efforts of the international aid community. For example, we fall over ourselves to support the health and education systems, to the extent that if anything is wrong with them we feel that it is our fault, and more money must be spent to rectify it. Naturally enough, the Congolese soon pick this up and if they encounter any social or economic problem their first thought is to ask themselves which donor they can ask to fix it.

A Congolese friend recently was asking herself the same question. Is this international aid creating a nation of helpless beggars, a client state that has neither the will nor the means to stand on its own feet? Is aid, in fact, truly helping? Did the United States get aid to develop?

The Congo is widely recognised as having massive wealth in terms of its minerals, forests and agricultural potential; not to mention its potential to supply electricity to the whole of Africa if a planned hydro-electric power station goes ahead. So why can’t it, like the USA of old, use those resources to stand on its own feet and develop itself without depending on other people for its development?

Good question.

A study in contrasts

There are two social outcasts in our office, the untouchables of office society. One makes the coffee, washes the cups and cleans the main building. The other cleans the smaller buildings and does the garden. Both are subjected to the arrogance of secretaries and clerks who rudely instruct them to buy food and drinks from the kiosks outside, with never a please or thank you.

If I was one such person I would have a chip on my shoulder. I would resent the card that life has drawn for me, putting me at the bottom of the pile, with no chance of getting higher, to be spoken down to, and abused, by all and sundry. I would do my job but would resent the fact that I have no money for the fancy clothes worn by the people who boss me around. I would not get out of bed with a spring in my step.

Such is the attitude of the coffee maker. In fact it’s worse than that. He does his job with an absolute minimum of dedication. As often as not he is very late. He regularly “forgets” to make coffee for those working in the annex. He forgets to order new coffee when his supply is running out. He has a particularly irritating attitude to washing up: he will wait until all mugs are dirty, and will then wash them all at once and leave them to dry for many hours.

When he has the chance he will engage any member of staff in one of his complaints about life. He stands in the large verandah and catches people as they enter or leave the main office. I have no idea what he says but he has, as they say, attitude. He scowls and raises his voice in anger. His arms thrash around to make the point. Each day there appears to be a new grievance which must be shared with some hapless bystander.

I was the object of his derision on one occasion. I had been on a visit to the head office in the USA. I had returned with a company mug which I passed on to my deputy as she was employed by the same firm. The coffee maker came into my office in his usual graceless way. “Where,” he said, “is my present?”

The other, the gardener, is different. Very different. He is small and old. His face is crumpled and reflects a life of hardship. But he has recognized that his role is to serve, and he’s determined to do so better than anyone else. He is never late. He never speaks to anyone – just puts his head down and conscientiously cleans the floors every day. At any one time in the first two hours of the office day, you can be pretty sure where he will be and what he will be doing. He takes pride in his little routine. After the floors, then it is his time to do the garden – his pride and joy. He must cut the grass, trim the hedges, water the plants in the dry season, spray insecticide from time to time and generally keep it neat and tidy. One of his little projects is to try and get grass to grow in the muddy car park area. The change is scarcely perceptible, but change there is.

I witnessed the most amazing example of his work ethic two days ago. There had been the typical stormy wind that presages a rain storm, and the kapok tree across the street had decided that this was the time to release its stuff. So these balls of fluff, the size of tennis balls, blew across the street and settled on our property. There was so much of it that it was almost as if the land was covered in snow, or rather a huge flock of tiny sheep were grazing on our lawns. For the gardener this was a challenge. He gets out a bucket and starts to pick up the kapok in what seems like a fruitless task, particularly because there’s still more floating in. It starts to rain, but does he stop? No, blue overall becoming ever darker as it is soaked by the rain, he stoops over the lawn to collect the fluff, not pausing for a second. Within the hour, the rain has stopped and the sun has come out, and there’s not a single piece of kapok visible.

During the elections last year, when the management decided they needed to have the residential addresses of all staff, it emerged that he was sleeping in a cupboard in the office compound. Such was his lack of self esteem that it never crossed his mind that he should have anything better. Some quick action secured him a tiny room behind one of the posh houses nearby.

Returning from a recent trip I gave everyone a little souvenir plate from the city I had been visiting. They went down well. I asked the gardener to come into my office.

“Here,” I said, “this is a small souvenir which I brought for you,” and gave it to him.

“What do you want me to do with it?” he said, “do you want me to wash it?”

Why, he was clearly thinking, would he want to give it to me? Is this a trick? People don’t give me presents. That's when the penny dropped: he had no way of processing the information that I had actually given it to him.

“No,” I said. “That is for you. To keep. I hope you like it.”

And with that he grinned, and left (unless my eyes deceived me) with a definite skip in his elderly step.

Flying high or low: who cares?

Flying high or low: who cares?

Because the local commercial airlines have a very dodgy track record, there’s only one which we are formally allowed to use – and it is part owned by Brussels Airlines. It flies between Kinshasa and Lubumbashi: that’s all.

For all other routes we have to use the UN system which is supposedly designed (though one sometimes marvels at its propensity for chaos . . .) to facilitate movement between UN bases: not for the convenience or comfort of development workers. Nevertheless, since it is largely funded by direct grants from, among others, the US and Britain, they cannot say no to requests from us to use their services. What they can say no to is to carrying non-essential staff when UN personnel need a seat. So the term “booking” has come to be used rather loosely. Yes, you’ve booked a place, but that means little if a UN person needs it. Just wait until the next flight, or maybe the one after that . . . And during the flights, some of which, with the numerous changes and circuitous routes can take all day, you get nothing more than water. The flights are operated by a strange galaxy of nations. Georgia had one route (which I think has now gone to Mexico), South Africa another, Canada a third. These operators bring out a plane or two, fly them around and then – oh sorry, we’ve got to take it for a service, so there will be no flights for a week or two.

The chorus of complaints that this system has caused, together with the total lack of customer service, a demand for something a bit more like a commercial service. The World Food Programme decided that enough was enough, so they launched their own service. Just as in the mainstream UN flights, the routes are operated by different national carriers, and just in the same way they are subject to the vagaries of servicing. In one flight I took, we were told that the weight limit had to be very strictly observed (to the extent that the passengers were weighed alongside their baggage) “as the plane was only half way through its service and if the load was too heavy it wouldn’t be able to take off”.

But there’s one big difference: unlike the UN service which is free, you actually buy a ticket. It’s a bit less than commercial tickets for the same distance, but it means that you have a confirmed place. And to underline the commercial nature of the transaction they give you a tiny cup of juice and a few biscuits during the flight. Mind you, not anyone can get on these flights. They have a very strict policy of only allowing registered staff of development agencies and implementing agencies to use the service: short term consultants and joy riders are completely forbidden.

But this place is, in truth a village. Before long you soon get to know the air crews and to understand that they too are human. They have needs, just like the rest of us. And they have faith – as you must to fly the skies of the Congo. And so when some crew members who are Muslims objected to flying on 26^th October because it is Eid-al-Adha, it was decided that there should be no flights at all that day, in their honour. Not just by Muslim crews, but all crews. Quick as a flash, the Catholics came back: if so, we are not going to fly on 1^st November: that is All Saints Day.

And thus it is: the village is happy. Any religious holiday will be observed by all. Why not? Once more the UN is setting an example in fair labour practice for all the world to copy.

(An aside: after a study of the poverty line in the DRC the UN decreed that the minimum wage for any employee was to be $600 a month. Thus cleaners in UN establishments get approximately six times the wages as anyone doing the same work in the private sector, something nearer that of a bank clerk).

Back to air travel. No one really minds that they cannot fly during those days unless they are stuck in some godforsaken hole at the back of beyond (which, to be fair, many of them will be), because what’s the point of doing today what you can put off until tomorrow?

Kinshasa Kerfuffles

Well, the Francophonie summit is over. The streets of Kinshasa are cleaner than ever before, and our week-end route to the Lac de ma Valée can now be taken at a healthy 40km an hour, as opposed to the previous 20km/hour because they’ve smoothed out the road and filled in the potholes, obviously because some dignitaries wanted to see the Bonobo Sanctuary which is reached from the same road.

And what has the fall-out been? There was a major frisson in Kinshasa when Francois Hollande, speaking in Dakar before arriving in Kinshasa, said he would use his visit to criticise the DRC government and President Kabila for their lack of respect for democracy and human rights.

Hollande had said that he was coming to the Congo to give a lecture, and not as a guest of the President, and certainly not to endorse his presidency. To make that clear, not only did he disclose the nature of his private meeting with Kabila – to tell him that unless he improved his record in human rights and democracy, he might loose support from France – but he did not even join in the applause at the end of Kabila’s opening speech at the Conference.

Hollande’s own speech to the conference was predictable, but it was nevertheless received with shocked oohs and aaahs by the Congolese in the audience. He didn’t miss a beat, and made no excuses: after all, is not the whole concept of democracy a product of the French Revolution and therefore synonymous with the language itself?

To rub salt in Kabila’s wound, later on the same day he had a high profile meeting with the leader of the opposition, Tshisekedi. In total contrast to the stand-offish coldness of his interaction with Kabila, this one was all smiles and hugs.

From what we hear even the hardened Tshisekedi was somewhat embarrassed by this attention. When he was asked whether it had given his role in the Congo the legitimacy that he so much craves he sensibly replied, “only the people of the Congo can do that.”

Long used to the mealy mouthed and hypocritical utterances of the donor community and the UN, most people in the expatriate community were saying Hurrah for Hollande! At last someone is saying it how it is. Imagine our surprise when the Congolese staff of the donors and NGOs working to improve the very same matters came out in total opposition to Hollande. Who does he think he is? He doesn’t even know the country, and only stayed for twelve hours. What right has he to be rude to our head of state? This is typical colonialist behaviour. Etc etc.

So, in the curious way of politics, Hollande has strengthened Kabila’s position. Maybe that shows that he’s got a lot to learn. Or maybe that he doesn’t care: it’s the electorate in France that he was talking to, not the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Money

The biggest note in circulation today is 500 Francs. That doesn’t sound too bad, you might think, until you know that that is only worth about half a dollar. There are huge advantages in having such worthless notes in terms of theft, of course. You would have to hire a truck to have steal any quantity of real value. As a result money changers have no worry about sitting in the street with piles of notes.

But for commerce, it’s clearly ridiculous. And payment of government salaries in the rural areas poses massive logistical problems. Apparently the Central Bank of Congo, when receiving deposits from banks and other large depositors, doesn’t bother to count the notes: they simply weigh them.

The Central Bank also has to face the problem of the expense of printing new notes in such huge quantities. So it was with relief that we heard the announcement that they were going to introduce notes in the denominations of 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 and 20,000 Francs. Common sense was finally prevailing

The reaction of the public, though, was totally different. “We reject the move totally,” they said. This is just another way that the government is using to deceive us. It will lead to massive inflation.”  They were recalling Mobutu’s days when he used to print massive quantities of money to pay his bills, and the currency, the Zaire, lost value to the extent that notes had to be in denominations of millions, not unlike the Zimbabwe Dollar some years later. Just as in Zimbabwe, the value changed from hour to hour and shopping was a lottery.

In response to the public’s fears about the new money, the Central Bank, quaintly giving itself the nickname “Currency Hotel”, issued a leaflet to guide the users how to use the new notes. It took examples about how everyone must play his part in using the new money and not allowing it to become inflationary.

For example, the Head of the Government must maintain budgetary discipline, mustn’t allow the prices of basic services such as electricity and water to rise, nor unreasonable increases in fuel. And he should ensure that people are paid on time.

The head of the Central Bank of the Congo must ensure that there is a sufficient supply of small notes, to avoid rounding up prices due to lack of change.

Commercial banks must ensure that they do not only make payments in large denomination notes and maintain a supply of small denomination notes. And that they encourage payments now being made in dollars, from cash machines and in some commercial accounts, to be made in Congolese Francs.

Big shops must not ration supplies, nor make sudden price changes, nor delay imports to create artificial shortages, nor shut their businesses (presumably to make adjustment to their tills).

Buses and taxis must accept small notes and keep plenty of change.

Money changers must give a mix of notes to their customers, so that they have small notes when making payments.

And finally . . .

Leaders of opinion must give everyone the same message spelt out above.

The public was not convinced, and critical responses mounted. This reaction clearly took the government by surprise. The Central Bank was told to delay the new notes. A few 1,000 notes have been found in circulation, but not enough to make any real difference.  But what was really interesting, when we finally got to see a 1000 franc note was the date: it had been printed in 2007. That’s food for thought.

Beauty and the Beast

It’s marvellous what a bit of national pride will do. Where, for years neglect and squalor prevailed, someone has realised that, even though filth and chaos are typical of the Congo, we must pretend otherwise.

Coming back after ten days, yes TEN DAYS, I arrive at a new airport. Gone is the dumpy old yellow heavy concrete airport of fifty years – in its place is a sleek steel and glass edifice, as modern as anything that New York might have to offer. Of course I know what most visitors will not know, that the steel and glass is a totally sham facade, erected just in front of the old building in a desperate attempt to pretend that the Congo doesn’t do old airports. Inside the arrivals hall the grimy ceiling and two dim bulbs have been replaced by a modern white ceiling with multiple recessed lights, beaming down onto new, flashy blue moulded counters for immigration officials, replacing awkwardly high tatty plywood kiosks. Even the official reception is different: the hostile stare from above has been replaced by prompt and pleasant service.

The car park has similarly been jazzed up. All the kerb stones have been painted in the alternating national colours of pale blue and bright yellow. There are desperate efforts – too late alas – to improve the dusty surroundings by planting grass and trees. Too late because THE SHOW starts in five days, but the grass hasn’t even started to grow and the trees are tiny. 

THE SHOW is, of course, the Francophone summit which is to take place from 12^th to 14^th October. Francois Hollande is coming, as well as Presidents from all over Africa. An opportunity for the DRC, and its President, to prove that their reputation for mismanagement and corruption is undeserved.

Once on the main road into town, one is struck by many brand new billboards welcoming visitors to Kinshasa. The most prominent ones are, typically, by the breweries, closely followed by well meaning banks – even a Nigerian Bank which swears, hand on its heart, that it is francophone. And, of course, the Mayor of Kinshasa wishes all visitors a very happy stay in his beautiful city.

Driving into town the transformation continues. Amazingly, (like the steel and glass facade of the airport) half of the new road has been completed in record time, and all that remains of the stygian filth that used to characterise the roadside, are heaps waiting to be collected. Around the main stadium there are more desperate attempts to grass the acres of bare earth, and a craft village of thatched huts has been built.

Readers will know that the clean-up started months ago in the centre of the city (see Cleanliness 101).  What seemed impossible at that time was that so many street sweepers would continue to be engaged right up until now, but they were. There are so many of them, with so little work to do, that they have been waiting under the trees for leaves to drop so that they have something to sweep up, and in the ultimate absurdity, have been sweeping the bottom of potholes.

We know that matters are really serious when we reach the Grand Hotel which is now graced by a number of republican guards, trying hard to look menacing. And on the approaches to the river, the sandbags at the military check points, that had long ago started to split from age, have been replaced, and nicely decorated with dabs of camouflage paint.

National pride clearly has its advantages. But there’s another side to it. The Government is terrified that the event will be used as an opportunity by the opposition hold demonstrations, to (rightly) accuse Kabila of rigging the elections and suppressing basic human rights. They have even threatened to disrupt the show altogether. So national pride dictates that the opposition has to be contained, and their strongholds in the city – even five days before the event – have been surrounded and check points established to prevent the free movement of people.

That apart, the clean up is obviously wonderful from everyone’s point of view. Let’s hope that the cynic in one is proved wrong, and that it won’t be a flash in the pan.

In pursuit of happiness

This is the best time of the month: when people have got money in their pockets. We set up ourselves by the side of the road and look forward to a profitable day. We like to work in threes: once we stop a car one of us talks to the driver, while another one stands in front, and the third stands behind. In that way the driver can’t make an escape if he thinks he’s caught.

There’s only one problem today. This is such a good route that there are three other road blocks within two kilometres. It doesn’t make any sense, because one group is taking the money that another group could get. But our Commanding Officer doesn’t listen to our complaints. He just says if you think your salary’s too small it is up to you to work out how to get some extra.

As I said, it’s a good route. That’s because there are so many cars and mini-buses. The mini-buses are the best for us: they often haven’t paid their insurance, or their lights don’t work. It amazes me how many fines they pay because their lights don’t work, but the drivers tell us that the owners are too busy to do anything about it.

But in some ways this is a bad route, because most of the drivers have very little money. A friend of mine has got a much better one: he managed to be assigned to the other end of town. They’ve mounted a wonderful operation there. Every month or so they set up road blocks to catch people who haven’t paid their insurance. Quite frankly I’m not surprised that people don’t pay it on time – how do you find $450 to pay in one go? It’s ridiculous. But it’s good for us. As I was saying, in their road blocks they catch Mercedes, Land Cruisers, Pajeros, Hummers – all sorts of fancy cars. Then, if the driver can’t pay, they clamp the wheels. He’ll find the money quick – you can be sure of that. So they pick up $50, $100 or even $200 if they are lucky. The best ones are the expatriates because they easily get scared.

The only problem is that sometimes the driver of someone with connections gets hit on, and we get a huge blasting from on top, but it’s still worth it. It happened to me not long ago – boy was I annoyed. I thought I had got someone: she had a broken mirror. That’s not a big deal, but she had a fancy car and a white guy sitting next to her, so I thought she’s good for $50, or at least $20 – that’s 20,000 francs. But then she turned out to know the Commander in Chief for the whole province and I got a blasting. How unfair is that? (See Two Policeman and a Princess).

So this is my plan. I’ve worked it out with my two mates. We’ll stick to the area we’ve got. We only get about 2000 francs a time for most of our fines – it’s nothing more than a friendly deal so that the drivers don’t loose too much, and we keep a steady income. Sometimes, especially if we are lucky enough to see an accident, we can get 20,000 francs, or even more, but that’s not very common.

We’ll keep half our takings in a special place: it’s investing in the future. When we’ve got enough we’ll go to our Commander and persuade him (if you know what I mean) to give us a road with lots of the posh cars.

Then we’ll be happy.

Witnessing Jehovah

We were driving down a busy road, minding our own business when CA-LUNK!!

Looking behind we saw a vast, brand new, Land Cruiser turning across the road. It was a LOOK AT ME car, with high level air intake so that it can drive through rivers, and huge bars in front so that it can push through the jungle. And it, in its haste to find a slot to turn around on a main road, across two lanes of traffic, it had hit our back end.

The driver had the decency to stop, and we jointly looked at the damage. Luckily it wasn’t much – he had knocked off a back reflector, housed in our rubber bumper. Many people would have brushed that off: we had retrieved the damaged part from the road and could probably glue it back again. But there was something about the car that told me that we should insist on getting recompense. After all, the spare, small as it is, would probably cost a fortune – about $200.

It was at that stage that I noticed, on the driver’s door, in discrete writing, the words Jehovah’s Witnesses. That clinched it.

My driver took the lead. With great eloquence he emphasised the great damage that we had suffered and the inconvenience and cost that we would suffer to get it repaired, and demanded to know what the driver was going to do about it. Did he, we asked, want us to report the matter to the police? If he was going to be obstructive we would have no choice. Oh no no, we will find a solution. After humming and hawing he went to get someone else whom, it seemed, he had just dropped for a meeting nearby. The new person insisted that they would pay for the damage. But how? Then things got a bit vague. He phoned the HQ, and after a long palaver said we should go to the reception and they would sort it out. Meanwhile the driver would continue with his work. Continue with his work? – what about me continuing with my work? We insisted that the HQ person should come to us, and stop playing around with us. He phoned again. No, it was impossible for anyone to come here – they didn’t have a vehicle. So we relented and agreed to go there. That was followed by more negotiation in which we insisted that the driver come with us. We knew they would never believe us if we just turned up without him.

So the convoy started and half an hour later, in a grim industrial area, we come across this very high wall, topped with razor wire and bougainvillea. We get inside the compound and are stunned at the beautiful landscaping, the obvious sense of order and cleanliness, as well as the grand scale of the place. The whole compound must be about 8 – 10 acres, with workshops, storage depots, classrooms, assembly rooms, offices and presumably dormitories. Walking around these beautiful grounds were lots of blessed, mainly young, people, basking in the knowledge of being saved. And everywhere we looked were rows of shiny news cars, just like the one which had hit us.

We park in front of the main reception area, and the culprit driver goes to find the man who deals with accidents. When he returns, and before he says any more to us, he reprimands my driver for parking forwards: here, he said, you have to reverse into your parking bay. So we did that, only to be told that the man we had to see was out, and they couldn’t say when he would be back. The injustice of the situation was so ridiculous that we started complaining loudly. After a while a group of observers clustered around. We had been told that all we had to do was present ourselves at the reception and now no one would see us?  Appalling. Especially when we had important business to do.

Eventually a grey-haired old man came out and invited us inside. He said everything would be sorted out. The offending driver was invited in first to give his report, and after about fifteen minutes we all went outside to inspect the damage. But then we were given the same message: there was no one available to see us. The responsible person was on business in town, and there was no one else. Then we get a lecture about good management, about how the Jehovah’s Witnesses were organised in independent lines of command, and how someone from the gardening division could tell someone from the garage division what to do, etc etc. Who, I asked, does the person we are waiting for report to?  Surely there’s someone above him who can help us? He, came the reply, reports only to God. Then someone started saying that we should follow the law. The law was that if you had an accident you had to report it to the police. And then the matter would be put in the hands of the insurance people. And so it went on, arguments becoming more and more bitter as their self-righteous attitude became more and more intolerable.

Then a little Frenchman (or more likely Canadian) turned up. He heard the story, made a phone call, and said “How would it be if we buy the spare part, and then call you when we’ve got it so that we can fit it for you? And, by the way,” he added, “I am very sorry for the accident and the inconvenience you have suffered.”

And that was that.

Is it worth it?

Being in the development business can be frustrating, even more so when, for all your good work, nothing actually changes.

Picture a naughty child, whose playroom is forever a jumble of toys. To the outsider the playroom looks like a dreadful mess, though to the child that doesn’t matter one bit. Parents regularly give lectures to the child, but, though he may tidy up now and again, nothing really changes.  Bring in Supernanny (those who’ve seen the TV show will know how she brings children to heel in a matter of days, and everyone lives happily thereafter), to give the child encouragement and clear guidance about what needs doing.

I hope the Congolese Government won’t be offended by the parallel, but that’s just what’s been happening with the Government finances. After years of chaos, Supernanny (The IMF, the World Bank, the EU, Britain and France) brings in a team of highly experienced experts. They set up new budget systems, new tax structures and new expenditure controls. There are full time advisers in The Bank of Congo, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Budget. The first such adviser, from the IMF, started nine years ago, so everyone’s had plenty of time to get used to the idea of financial reform and modern management methods. They can now proudly point to the fact that the annual budget is now properly presented and analysed.

But . . . that’s theory. What about reality? The 2012 budget, which was ready for submission to Parliament in October last year, was only adopted by Parliament in July 2012, thus giving spending departments, in the first seven months of the year, carte blanche to spend what they liked. Why the delay? The members of Parliament were too busy campaigning for the elections in October and November last year to bother about the budget. And this year, it took five months to form a new Government and just as long to get Parliamentary timetables back on track.

But even if there had been a budget would it have made a difference? The 2011 budget was passed in good time, so no one could claim that it didn’t exist. But what they could do was to use the procedure for emergencies under which expenditure may be made even though it is not budgeted. And in 2011 the country experienced so many so-called emergencies that 47.5% of the budget was spent using that excuse. And if you analyse which Ministries had to face the most emergencies it was, of course, the offices of the President and the Prime Minister. Emergencies such as having to induce people to vote for them, maybe?

The neat thing about the Congolese budget is that individual Ministries have their own sources of funds – taxation which they can levy directly from the public. These funds are supposed to go directly into the national treasury, but the Ministries concerned have no intention of allowing that. So the funds are kept off-budget, and used as a personal slush fund for patronage by the Minister, and salary supplements for him and his senior staff.

The situation has not been helped by the fact that, in an effort to reduce corruption and other offences, the government invented a truly Kafka-esque system for the approval of payments. The total number of actions required to pay a government bill was, until very recently, 120. You can imagine that there is every incentive to bypass that process, if you can use your own Ministry funds and just pay friends and family directly for services received. Even though this process has now been reduced to 20 steps, there’s still every incentive to ignore the system.

Anyway, that’s all going to end soon. A new report prepared by Supernanny has detailed all this malfeasance and described in detail the liberties which have been taken with the system. We have every confidence that its recommendations will be adopted and implemented with enthusiasm within the next six months. Every confidence??

TV

A few weeks ago we were alerted to the fact that The Head of State, as he’s typically called here (rather than President, which allegedly doesn’t sound so impressive) was going to make an important announcement at 4 p.m. Some people joked that he would announce that he had resigned; or maybe he was seeking political asylum in Britain so that he could see the rest of the Olympic games. Presumably it would be about the war in the East which is beginning to look increasingly unwinnable. Does he have a Syria on his hands?

Anyway, not unusually, he didn’t appear at four o’clock and we gave up watching after five. To this day I don’t know whether he ever did appear. But while we were waiting, the TV station (the state broadcaster, of course) filled in the time with the standard fare: dancing.

Dancing is very useful in this country because everyone likes music, and the theory is that if you ever have a message to convey it should be accompanied by dancing. Since 99% of all the music here has a particular beat, then you can be sure that the dancing will be more or less the same no matter what.

This message was not lost on election candidates, most of whom included dancing crowds in their videos. Nor is it lost on advertisers. Need to sell shampoo?  Show people dancing with happiness with their new hair.  Need to inspire people to worship? Show them dancing inside the church. Want to advertise the latest instant soup? Why not have everyone dancing with joy because it tastes so good.

This is not hi-octane dancing. The norm is for people to simply stand, hands at the side, wiggling their hips and smiling inanely. Feet are allowed to shuffle a little, but one must not fling them around: that’s much too western.

The big advantage is that, as TV material, it’s cheap. It requires no special “Strictly Come Dancing” floor or other props. We saw someone setting up a shoot recently by the river. They had a cheap boombox with a CD in it, a home-movie style video camera, and a team of eight girls dressed in identical kit. And that was that. After half an hour it was in the can.

It is so loved that some people will even prefer it to the daily soaps. So TV stations know that they don’t have to worry that people will turn off if they fill available time with dancing, and they have almost limitless supplies to do so.

But there comes a time when the standard model doesn’t seem quite right, so while waiting for the President to come on, the station decided to screen something different.

Scene: an operating theatre, with a bloodied almost dead girl on the table. Someone is trying, in rhythm with the music, to resuscitate her with periodic but delicate shoves to the chest. They put an oxygen mask on her. Getting bored with the helpless case in the operating theatre, the scene changes to the ward where nurses are dancing around more horribly wounded patients. A doctor comes in (we know he is, because he has a stethoscope round his neck) and with a beatific grin sashays through the ward, his chorus line following him, ignoring the poor patients. And so it continues, for a good fifteen minutes, crossing between mutilated bodies and jolly dancing nurses all to the relentless beat of happy music.

I was mocking it, much to the consternation of my politically sensitive Congolese colleague. “They,” he said, very seriously, and without any sense of irony, “are expressing the national outrage at the conditions in the East.”

Cleanliness 101

Kinshasa is getting really excited because the Francophonie Conference is to be held here. That doesn’t sound like much, but in fact it is quite a big thing. It’s not just a language conference, but more like a Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference for the family of French-speaking countries. It’s held every two years, and normally attended by Heads of State by over 50 countries. Like the commonwealth it has its own secretariat and acts as a cultural and developmental organisation.

Tradition has it that the conference is chaired by the host nation. President Kabila is naturally very excited to have this role, but less than thrilled to hear that Francois Hollande is probably not coming. Like many people, he (Hollande) is said to be reluctant to legitimise Kabila after last year’s dodgy election.

So what’s Kinshasa doing to prepare itself? It is said that Kabila has managed to get a Chinese billionaire to refurbish an office block, the one-time Zaire Chamber of Commerce, (a 23 storey white elephant of the Mobutu period that has lain unused for decades), as a conference hotel and venue. It’s certainly got a magnificent position, right on the river, but whether they will be able to make the interior suitably presidential is not so sure.

And . . . wait for it: they are sweeping the streets. One of the problems of this town is that the soil is very sandy and somehow the streets are always edged with sand. Someone from on high has recently decreed that this sand is unsightly, so an army of street sweepers have been consigned to do the necessary. Wherever they work large signs are erected on stands in the centre of the road proclaiming “Cleansing of Kinshasa”. We were astonished last week, coming back from a restaurant after 10.00 on a Friday night, to see them still at it. The same on Saturday and Sunday. 

It’s a laborious task. First the sand is swept into little heaps, then the heaps are collected in a wheelbarrow and put onto a bigger heap, then shovelled into large bags, and finally the bags are taken somewhere in little trailers pulled by a motorbike. It’s only done in the posh areas, of course. As part of the cosmetics, grass verges are also being trimmed, and leaves being swept up too. The only thing which doesn’t seem right is that we are about two months away from the Conference, so what’s it all for? A dry run, to see how long it takes?

Meanwhile, a mere block away from the immaculately swept streets and trimmed verges, the litter along the river spreads like an evil pox. In spite of the fact that litter bins are available, the scene is disgusting.

There’s something else which isn’t so savoury along the river. That’s the dog poo. There are a few – mainly American, it must be said – owners who carry around little plastic bags and dutifully pick it up. For most of us, it doesn’t seem that important unless the dog is insensitive enough to do it on the footpath. In that case it’s shameful and must be covered up by soil or otherwise made harmless. But we tell ourselves that in this climate within a day or two it’ll be washed away, or else sterilised by the sun, so it doesn’t really matter. In reality, of course, the excuse is just a cover for our laziness. Obviously, unlike the city fathers, we haven’t learned that cleanliness is next to godliness.

One block away they are sweeping up the sand and leaves: here, it's someone else's job
(It's not all as bad as this: there are parts of the river bank which are pristine)

African grey parrots, imparting their wisdom

But then, to help everyone forget the squalor, the parrots in the trees above make a noisy contribution to the debate. They tell us not to fret so much. It’s been like this for years, they say, just chill.