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.