DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-CONGO: An Administration in Shambles

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sandrine Loubassou

BRAZZAVILLE, May 30 1998 (IPS) - The impression left with a visitor to government ministries in the Congo is that of being in a house gutted by a cyclone, but the disaster here had nothing to do with nature – it was man-made.

The armed conflict that raged from June to October last year between supporters of then head of state Pascal Lissouba and Sassou Nguesso – the former president who took power as a result of the war – all but flattened the Congolese capital.

Private militias plundered all administrative buildings and businesses, carting off office furniture, computers, other equipment and in some cases, even files. Now, state employees sit on drawers – pulled out from the few desks that escaped the plunder – in dusty, cobwebbed offices whose floors have pools of water after each shower of rain. Visitors waiting their turn in the corridors stand next to cupboards stuffed with files.

Offices have no locks so civil servants take home any equipment they have at the end of each day. The scarcity of equipment renders government ureaucracy even morsluggish than before the war. Secretaries sometimes have to leave their offices and go to other, better-equipped ones so as to type letters, and memoranda.

Not everything is scarce: there is no shortage of state employees since Congo’s public service was one of the largest in Africa. There were 80,000 state employees up to 1994 when retrenchments reduced the number to just less than 70,000, which was still high for a population of 2.5 million.

Most public servants who had fled the fighting in the capital came back after Sassou Nguesso urged them to return to work, although those who were close to the Lissouba overnment have sought refuge in their villages of origin or abroad.

Finding out how many there are now is the aim of an upcoming census of state employees. In preparation for the headcount, workers can be seen rummaging each day in the scattered archives at the Public Service Ministry, looking for various documents so as to piece together files for the Labour Ministry.

But some files have been lost forever: many of those stolen during the war were sold to vendors for use as wrapping paper.

The worst hit departments are education and health: schools were destroyed and schoolyards transformed into cemeteries so many establishments had to be closed for the 1997-1998 school year and their students transferred to other schools. “The large number of students,” says teacher Agathe Malonga, “prevents us from properly mnitoring the work and movement of the children.”

There are few tables for the teachers. Chairs and desks are in short supply since many were used as firewood during the war so some pupils bring small benches from home to sit on. Health specialists fear that the lack of desks and chairs could eventually cause the children to develop spinal deformities.

Brazzaville’s schools are also unsafe. Many students joined the militias during the civil war and even though an operation to disarm h militiamen was launched recently, some of them still have their weapons, which they use to intimidate teachers. They do so, for example, when taking state and university exams so as not to be disturbed by the invigilators if they decide to cheat, one student told IPS.

The general state of the public service has helped accentuate a phenomenon that had already been developing in pre-war Congo: ‘moonlighting’. Many state employees stay away from their jobs so as to do some type of informal activity. This situation, Labour Minister Martin Mbemba admitted on May 1, has been having a negative impact on productivity.

Even without the war, things had already been difficult for state employees, who had their salaries reduced by 27.5 percent in the past five years, while their allowances were halved and working hours reduced to 35 per week.

According to unofficial estimates, at least seven state employees out of 10 are involved in informal trading while some who have managed to set aside enough capital have gone into the field of services.

“Having an extra source of income other than your salary is not a crime,” explains Finance Ministry official M. Kaya, co- owner of a private school. “You just ave to know tobalance the two activities so as not to focus on one at the expense of the other.”

Public hospitals also lack equipment. There is no delivery table left at the Brazzaville University Hospital, the country’s biggest medical institution. Its ultrasound scanners have also vanished.

Such equipment was stolen during the war and sold to private clinics, some of them operated by doctors who work officially for the public hospitals but set up their own practices, where they also employ other physicians.