ECONOMY-DR CONGO: Budget Causes a Crack in Government

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Juakali Kambale

KINSHASA, Feb 25 2003 (IPS) - It is extremely rare for a government minister to resign in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

And when finance minister, Frederic Matungulu Mbuyamu, threw in the towel after the government rejected his 2003 budget, Congolese have been asking a lot of questions. Mbuyamu’s resignation, on Feb 17, followed remarks by members of parliament (MPs) that his budget is out of step with the nation’s needs, and that it borders on the World Bank policy. ”If legislators demanded and received finance minister’s resignation, it’s because his economic policy had nothing to do with the plight of ordinary Congolese,” says Yosa Ngudi of Economic and Financial Committee of the Congolese Parliament. Mbuyamu said his resignation ”has nothing to do with the problems facing ordinary Congolese”. ”I resigned because I was recalled to Kinshasa to deal with some petty administrative matters,” he said. ”When I arrived at the airport, I was ordered by the security forces to approve a large sum of expenses.” Mbuyamu, who was recalled from Lubumbashi, a city on the border with Zambia, where he was defending his budget before parliament, said he did not understand how government could turn against him when he was seeking its unyielding support. ”This budget was discussed at the highest levels of government and I was mandated to take it to parliament. I was just in the process of doing so, when I was recalled to Kinshasa,” he explained. The 361 billion CFA (864 million U.S. dollars) budget included expenditures to fight poverty and improve living conditions. In Kinshasa, some 2.5 million people live on less than one U.S. dollar per day, according to the leading British charity, Oxfam. In some parts of the Eastern DRC, controlled by rebels, the charity says, people live on 0.18 U.S. cents per day. DRC, with external debt of 13 billion U.S. dollars, is ranked 152nd on the UNDP Human Development index of 174 countries: a fall of 12 places since 1992. Sources at the Central Bank of Congo say the army had ordered the finance minister to approve some ”bogus expenses”. A Central Bank of Congo manager, who requested anonymity, confirmed a ”conflict between the minister and the governor of the Central Bank of Congo over the authorisation of expenses”. Often, expenses are approved exceeding inflation rate. ”This practice is very common and predates (President Joseph) Kabila,” said one source.

In the streets of Kinshasa, the resignation of the minister, whose successor has yet to be appointed, has caused a stir. Some senior government officials blame Mbuyamu. ”This budget is worthless. If the minister of finance only proposed 13 U.S. dollars for the lowest-earning civil servant in Congo, it won’t be much for managers,” says Jose Nzumbuko, a senior employee at the Ministry of Transport. Hilaire Mabaya, a former finance minister, says Mbuyamu is a hero who ended Congo’s economic and diplomatic isolation, internationally. ”In 18 months, he succeeded not only in halting the 1997-2001 hyperinflation but also in initiating some economic growth. If certain financial aid is granted to the DRC, it’s because he met the austerity measures prescribed by the donors.” During the July 2002 trip to the DRC, World Bank president James Wolfensohn congratulated the Congolese government in fighting the galloping inflation, which was undermining the country’s economy. In just one year, the rate of inflation was brought down from 500 percent to 10 percent, something, which was applauded by the World Bank chief. On Friday (Feb 21), the World Bank’s board of directors met in Washington to discuss the DRC’s financial woes. Up to 2.5 million people have died since the outbreak of the Congolese war in 1998, many from preventable diseases, according to aid agencies. At least 37 percent of the population, around 18.5 million people, have no access to any kind of formal health care, according to Oxfam. It says 16 million people have critical food needs. The problem is further compounded by the fact that there are only 2,056 doctors for a population of 50 million; of these, 930 are in Kinshasa.