TheEconomistFebruary 8th 2020 371T
here wassupposed to be a big party on
January 24th. It was going to cost $6m
and celebrate the first anniversary of Félix
Tshisekedi’s inauguration as president of
the Democratic Republic of Congo. The
government presents this as Congo’s first
ever peaceful handover of power. But the
idea of the party enraged many Congolese,
most of whom live on less than $2 a day.
Their situation has hardly improved under
Mr Tshisekedi, who took over after a rigged
election, and whose powerful predecessor,
Joseph Kabila, still looms in the back-
ground. In the end the party was cancelled.
Mr Tshisekedi (pictured) made three big
campaign promises, and is struggling to
keep any of them. He vowed to spend
$2.6bn, or 40% of last year’s budget, on free
primary education for all Congolese. The
government hired over 40,000 new teach-
ers in 2019. None, however, was paid. Some
have already gone on strike. This year the
government should have more to spend
thanks to the imfand World Bank, which
have agreed to big loans (contingent on
more transparency). But Mr Tshisekedi’s
budget of $10.2bn (63% higher than last
year’s) is also unrealistic. It assumes that
domestic revenue will rise by 56%, mainly
as a result of less fraud and tax evasion.
Good luck with that.
Stamping out corruption was Mr Tshi-
sekedi’s second big promise. Congo has
more than half the world’s cobalt—a metal
used in laptops, mobile phones and elec-
tric cars. But total recorded exports (which
are mostly minerals) represent less than a
dollar a day per citizen, and hardly any of
this reaches ordinary people. The imfend-ed its previous lending programme in 2012,
concerned about dirty dealing in the min-
ing industry. Its return appears to be based
more on hope than progress. The Public Ex-
penditure Observatory, a watchdog, claims
that 21 public construction contracts total-
ling $2.3bn were handed out illegally.
The third area where Mr Tshisekedi
vowed to make progress was in eastern
Congo, where dozens of armed groups are
wreaking havoc. The army has launched an
offensive against one of the most brutal,
the Allied Democratic Forces (adf), which
is alleged to have links to Islamic State. The
government claims to have captured the
group’s headquarters and killed five of its
leaders. But attacks by the adfand others
continue. In 2019 over 500 people were
killed in the region. On January 28th at least
36 people died in a suspected adfattack in
Beni. They were hacked to death, said Do-
nat Kibwana, the region’s governor. More
than 16,000 unpeacekeepers provide un-
certain protection. Angry locals call them
“the body collectors” and set fire to the un
office in Beni during protests in November.
Millions have fled the fighting.
Mr Tshisekedi is beholden to his prede-
cessor, who has not gone away. After 18
years of misruling Congo, Mr Kabila said he
would step down after the election in 2018.
But he rigged the vote to hold on to power.
The effort did not go smoothly: his chosen
successor proved so unpopular that he hadCongo
Not much to celebrate
KINSHASA
After one year in charge, Félix Tshisekedi has accomplished little
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