Aid and Mobutism in the Congo
We made it out of the DRC and were just on time for X-mas. It will take some time to 'digest' it all. As before, Gerard Prunier (Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rawandan Genocide, and the making of a continental catastrophe, 2008) helps to shed light on the situation (including the craziness we went through to leave) the Congo, when he writes:
“With an insufficient tax base and a
negative balance of trade, public finances still rely heavily on aid (over 40
percent). Whatever is not in the peasant self-produced and nearly nonmonetary
sector of the economy is under direct foreign perfusion. The only services
available to the people are foreign-created, foreign-run, and foreign-financed.
The UN and NGOs together spend $3 billion a year running hospitals, providing
transport, paying the army, and supporting the school system. The only media
organ with a national reach, Radio Okapi, is a UN-NGOs joint venture.
One of the main problems
of this aid, and a problem typical of many post-conflict situations but
particularly preoccupying here, is the very poor coordination between projects
and implementing agencies. Duplication, confusion, and waste are rife. This
lack of coordination is particularly damaging because of the endless levels of
corruption common in the DRC. This is probably where the consequences of the
thirty-two years of Mobutism as a system implied and presupposed corruption,
even elevating corruption to the level of an institution. This created a
political and administrative culture wherein the stealing of government funds
was seen as normal, even praiseworthy; civil servants would boast to each other
of their achievements in theft. This culture has survived Mobutu and is still
causing havoc in the economy today. The problem is not only a moral one, it is
a financial and economic one; the extent of corruption is such that the
government is largely economically dysfunctional. The coexistence of middle-ranking
civil servants paid $50/month working in parastatal companies under bosses who
are often paid up to $15,000/month (and who steal quite a bit beyond these
opulent salaries) has a demoralizing effect on the workforce".
It’s
a complicated story, with no easy answers. For me the Congo was 'a hell of an
experience', with questions still mounting high…. In particularly, how the colonial past has
shaped the material and immaterial aspects in African countries today; Can we
still blame the colonizers? What about the Congolese leaders that have been
some of the most reckless on the continent? What role racism plays or the “superiority
complex” of Westerners, which transfers into their aid projects. And the hubris
of those sitting in capitals across the north, making up projects without
talking to the people it should affect… and sometimes without ever even setting
foot into the country or on the continent.
Either
way, the combination of factors has left the Congolese people in an almost unsolvable
quagmire. The past was bad, very bad, but the future does not look much
brighter. It is with a bleak view and heavy heart I am leaving this country… what
a disaster this has been. I can only hope that sometime soon this will all make
sense….
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