THE DRC PRESIDENT FAILS TO DELIVER ON INSTITUTIONAL PERFORMANCE

The Congolese people are heading towards a social, economic and security catastrophe, threatening their very existence as a nation and state. More than 150 armed groups ravage the country, seven contingents of foreign armies occupy the national territory. The provinces are in arrears of several months of retrocession. Civil servants are experiencing the resurgence of the nightmare period of the 1990s with intermittent pay. The Congolais Franc continues its vertiginous fall beyond FC. 2000/1 USD. This makes survival almost impossible in terms of paying rent and buying basic necessities. This situation is absolutely analogous to that of Mali, having pushed the people to go massively to the streets to put pressure on the President in order to find urgent and adequate solutions. However, in the DRC, there are worse. The president failed to produce the legitimacy of institutional performance, thus eroding his meager electoral legitimacy of 30% of the vote.

This extremely perilous situation, likely to lead to the disintegration of the country, does not seem to attract the intense attention of President Félix Tshisekedi. He is more concerned with the stratagems of expanding his imperial powers, with political appointments, disrespectful of the Institution Government, and beyond the constitutional prescriptions of the semi-presidential regime.

His intention to monopolize the state he captured to serve mercantilist foreign interests. The People are first reduced to a credo of political hypnosis. The incantations of political messianism have evaporated into an illusion under the test of power. It was bitterly realized after 18 months: There was nothing luminescent for the change of the DRC once at the helm of the state, in this struggle of 38 years. The disillusion is total.

This citation starts from the extenuating circumstances relating to the novitiate in state leadership. Now let’s give President F. Tshisekedi a second and final opportunity. He was offered the elements of an emergency plan for the rescue of the Congolese people in danger in four points. First, the obligation of a mandatory evaluation of all presidential and government programs with demonstration of results. Second, the commitment to act only in the direction of consolidating national unity. This by starting by launching a conclave of national cohesion essentially based on the main axes of the national emergency plan for the social, economic and security rescue of the DRC. Third, the design of a mega project of a minimum of USD 15-20 billion to borrow for the implementation of the emergency plan of the “multimodal reinvention” of the DRC. And finally, quarto, the launch of the Congo hub project for Agriculture, the gold-diamond jewelry industry and lithium-niobium-nickel-chromium-based products.

In this regard, the major thesis is that President Félix Tshisekedi has every chance of making history as the father of the reindustrialization of the DRC and of the emergence by 2028. If he is not capable of activating the materialization of such an ambition, with improvement of living conditions, by December 2020, with all the possibilities in natural resources of the DRC, he will have to return the apron.

THE OBLIGATION TO EVALUATE ALL PRESIDENTIAL AND GOVERNMENTAL PROGRAMS AFTER 18 MONTHS OF THE WORK-BASED WORKPLACE

We had made progress in democratization, by overhauling the republican state, with rules of rational governance. Presidential candidate Félix Tshisekedi, like his party, had for more than 38 years promised to bring brilliant and transparent governance of the state. However, after 18 months at the head of state, the Presidency of the Republic used funds from the public treasury to implement more than three programs for which the Head of State does not report to anyone as if we were in a state of sultanate. Regarding the urgent 100-day presidential program, his former chief of staff Hon. Kamerhe was tried and sentenced to 20 years in prison. But the presidency, where all the mafiotization of the state took place, was completely unaccounted for.

Just as it did not even carry out a managerial audit to bring corrective and innovative actions, which could allow better functionality in order to avoid the fiasco of prefabricated houses. The President Félix Tshisekedi then launched a “Poverty Reduction” program at Lac de Ma Vallée.

Until today, the Congolese do not know to what extent poverty has been reduced.

Its latest program relating to the multisectoral response to the effects of Covid-19 is totally devoid of the ambition of reinventing the DRC with even minimal momentum of what is being accomplished elsewhere.

And worse, of the $ 2 billion budgeted, no one knows where these funds will come from because the national budget itself is deflated from $ 11 billion to $ 3 billion. This program is simply a political ploy to give the president a clear conscience.

In addition, Prime Minister Ilunkamba and his government also have an obligation to carry out this public assessment in the National Assembly, ministry by ministry, to show the people what they have achieved. The governology requires that in the modern democratic state, the Prime Minister and his government carry out this evaluation regularly, and for the attention of the nation, by demonstrating the materialization of the Government Program. This assessment is the most salient mark of efficient and transparent governance, which is one of the major actions in the consolidation of democracy.

To this end, it is of paramount importance for Parliament to be rigorous in its oversight function of government by requiring an evaluation of the execution of the Government Program, which is a different exercise from accountability.

In the same vein, the National Assembly should also require the audit of all public services including the Presidency of the Republic. The Rule of Law also includes the right of citizens to be informed of the performance of public services and institutions, in the sense of producing added value that improves existential conditions and contributes to the progress of the Republic.

THE COMMITMENT TO WORK FOR NATIONAL UNITY AND SOCIOPOLITICAL COHESION

Since 2001, colossal efforts have been made by Honorary President Joseph Kabila to restore national unity. In order to achieve socio-political cohesion, he made huge sacrifices by agreeing to rule with former rebel leaders, and then with senior UDPS officials who once covered him with furious abuse. To ensure the continuity of national unity and socio-political cohesion, Honorary President Joseph Kabila has complied with the Constitution.
He refused to follow his African colleagues who forced their third terms, while accepting the electoral victory of a former leader of the radical opposition. All these achievements of national unity and socio-political cohesion are being eroded. Recent ordinances have exacerbated this degradation with the impression of the hegemony of one tribal-political group over others. These Ordinances produce feelings of marginalization even within the military and are likely to ignite the country.

In this regard, the President is called upon to operate a rise in State leadership in order to be the Guarantor of the Nation as prescribed by the Constitution.

He must therefore provide efforts for emotional intelligence, liberation from tribal-family allegiance and the dictatorship of activism.

Thus, it is recommended that it organize a forum (whatever its name) with the main representatives of the institutions, the parties represented in parliament, the main opposition leaders, businessmen, academics, Churches and civil society, in a two-day session with up to 100 people, for the reconciliation of views on the “National Plan for Rescue and Reinvention of the Nation” in the post-Covid-19 phase. As underlined below, this plan is republican, to be validated by the representatives of the whole nation, and envisaging expansive actions on all the national territory. It will therefore not be a program concocted for the Presidency by its task force or a clique – based on the prefabricated houses model.

This conclave will also help heal the social wounds inherent in recent rifts. It will therefore be a forum for the reconciliation of views like the Congolese Union, like the European Union having launched its plan of USD858 billion, in order to reinvent the country and boost its emergence as a stable and prosperous country in the midst of the turbulence. of Covid-19 and beyond. The president will also have to make a solemn commitment to avoid any pattern of egotistical, tribal, partisan or foreign inspiration that could exacerbate tribal-political antagonisms and inflame the country.

THE REPUBLICAN PLAN FOR THE REINVENTION OF THE DRC POST-COVID-19, THE LOAN OF A MINIMUM OF USD 15-20 BILLION AND THE DRC AGRICULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL HUB OF AFRICA.

In the years 2012-2014, the DRC having achieved remarkable economic performance, with an economic growth rate of over 9%, inflation at nearly 1%, along with a gain of 11 places on the ranking of the ‘HDI, institutions and experts both national and international had projected the emergence to 2030.

Today, due to poor economic and macroeconomic governance, the global economic effects of Covid-19 have found the DRC in cash flow shortages. This, against the backdrop of the excessive burdens of the presidency and hypertrophic institutions, with a 100-day presidential program having eroded currency reserves. So our socioeconomic situation cannot be said to be “normal because of the exogenous shock essentially inherent in Covid-19”. It is amplified by previous poor economic, macroeconomic and fiscal governance.

If it had not been for the rigor and the attempts at orthodoxy spearheaded by the Minister of Finance (which revealed the mafiotization of the state and the embezzlement in the 100-day program) the situation would have been ultra-catastrophic.

All this situation shows that the guiding data of the strategic planning carried out since 2011-2014, in particular in the main axes of the National Strategic Development Plan, must be revised. But, this should not be the work of the President or the Government alone: ​​it takes a participatory, pragmatic, short process, creating a general consensus on the general axes of a National Plan for Socioeconomic and Security Rescue in the Short Term. and medium-term Economic Reinvention with a long-term focus linked to PNSD projections. This plan is NATIONAL and not presidential or governmental. That is to say, it is a “plan-commitment” before the nation to carry out actions of accelerated reconstruction and development, which respond with robustness and substance to social needs and transform the structure of the economy. This, in view of the global challenges and potentials created by the effects of Covid-19.

We have all followed all serious countries with far-sighted national leaders, designing ambitious and innovative plans from the perspective of the socio-economic effects of Covid-19. Recently, the leaders of the European Union met in Brussels and, after the divisions and antagonisms of the first days of the debates, they finally agreed to borrow on the international market $ 858.
The author already has a concept note for this plan, its rationalizing paradigm and key assignments. These resources, which can be collected in increments of USD3 billion by December 2020, USD 4 billion in 2021, USD 5 billion in 2022 and USD 3 billion in 2023, will inevitably allow the economic reinvention of the DRC with unparalleled infrastructure in Central Africa. Our debt, which is nearly 40% of GDP, gives us leeway by borrowing USD 15 billion. We will not exceed 100% of GDP like most African countries. President Félix Tshisekedi has the historic opportunity to go down in history as the father of industrialisation and the emergence of the DRC from 2028. If he applies the terms proposed here, he will be the leader of the accelerated reconstruction, the modernizing revival of agriculture by 2022 and the emergence of the industry of gold-diamond precious materials (several refineries and cutters) and strategic lithium-niobium-based products nickel-chromium. These accomplishments could get him elected in 2023, as part of the FCC-CACH coalition extended to a determining opponent, to make way for the FCC candidate in 2028.

CONCLUSION

PRESIDENT F.TSHISEKEDI SHOULD REINVENT HIMSELF AS A DEVELOPMENTAL STATE AND SAVE THE DRC OR SELF EJECT: DECEMBER 2020 IS THE DEADLINE

The situation described above is that of Mali. We cannot accept mental and intellectual tortures, nightmares of tensions and socioeconomic degeneration. President Félix Tshisekedi should show humility, openness, consociational political intelligence, to consolidate national cohesion, launch an ambitious national plan to rescue and prosper the people and the Republic.

If by December 15, 2020, nothing substantial in the direction of the proposed main lines is undertaken and the exchange rate reaches the bar of FC.2500 / 1 USD, the nation must resort to Article 44 of the Constitution.

All of society, churches, academics, civil society, political parties, we should go out into the streets to demand that he return the apron. As much as he threatens to dissolve the National Assembly, as much on the basis of material proofs of his recurring violation of the constitution, and especially with regard to the “failure to execute his part of the social contract” and electoral commitments, having eroded his thin electoral legitimacy of 30% of votes, a petition can be initiated according to article 27 of the Constitution. The DRC is not an absolute monarchy or a “mfumu” imposing its will on 82 million people.

Nothing is definitely lost. President Félix Tshisekedi can reinvent himself and make his contribution to the reinvention of the Congo already initiated by his predecessor Joseph Kabila since 2001.

Kabasu Babu H.K

(Free-thinker and Writer)