Diplomatic World nummer 54

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system and in the banks. Also, we would provide securities
to everybody. I would like to introduce what I call “the
Kinshasa stock exchange”. What is the purpose of this?
The current system allows foreign companies to hold all
of the shares of some major Congolese companies. When
they decide to sell, they sell, for example, to the Chinese.
But how can someone like me, a Congolese shareholder,
buy shares from the companies of my country? By having
the stock exchange, those companies will be listed in the
register of the Kinshasa stock exchange, which means that
any Congolese who wants to become a shareholder can call
his or her broker and buy the shares to participate in the
national wealth. So, these are the reforms in the franchise
system. The next pillar of the strategy is to develop labour
intensive infrastructure, such as roads, highways, railroads,
airports, national parks, schools, public hospitals and so
on. We will build about 400 more cities throughout the
country.
By doing so, we will create jobs for the Congolese. This
is a country where everything is still left to be done, so
it doesn’t make sense that people are unemployed. We
have to create opportunities for the Congolese people to
participate, and if they don’t have the skills, we will bring
people in from outside of the Congo. The next pillar is
to accelerate industrialization. I already mentioned that
this involves our natural resources. We want to create a
system to attract foreign investment to mingle with the
Congolese private sector and we will transform some of
the raw materials into semi-finished and finished goods
in the country itself. By doing so, we will create jobs for
our people but also creating opportunities for those who
are coming to help us. The next pillar is about human
resources. Where will we find them? I already mentioned
we will look for the human resources in the Congo itself, in
the diaspora and if we can’t find the expertise, we will bring
in the international experts and the international private
sector to work with us. Finally, where will we find the
finances for this programme? I have estimated the cost of
this programme at 800 billion dollars over 15 years.
Most of the money will come from fighting corruption,
because the Congo generates revenues, but those revenues
go into private pockets. The place to start is to fight
corruption, to bring those revenues back and put them in
the national budget. By doing so, we will reduce the need
to borrow from outside the country. We will, however, keep
working with the international community, the foreign
investors, the bilateral and multilateral donors.
Out of the total cost of 800 billion dollars, 600 billion dollars
will come from the internally generated revenues, which
would be an average budget of about 45.3 billion dollars per
year. Then, about 3 billion dollars per year will come from
bilateral and multilateral donors, which is the current level I
want to maintain. The final portion will come from the direct
foreign investors, about 75 billion dollars over 15 years. This
means we will have an annual increase of about 3 to 5 billion
dollars a year, because we are going to stabilize the country
and we are going to create a good environment for the private
sector, also from outside the country. So, the summary is:
680 billion dollars coming from internal resources, 45 billion
dollars from bilateral and multilateral donors and 75 billion
dollars from direct foreign investment, making it a total of
800 billion dollars over 15 years.
If you compare that to the potential revenues of the
country, it’s quite limited.
Yes, in that way I’m being very conservative, because I don’t
want to scare off the people. The Congo is going to take off
in a bigger way, because once we have a stable institution
and we have good leadership with a good vision, you will
see that people will come knocking on the Congo’s door
to come and invest. But, in general, we will raise more
revenues; fiscal revenues, mining revenues, from different
sources. The national budget of the Congo will increase
tremendously. To give you an idea: Angola, a neighbouring
country, had a budget of 66 billion dollars in 2015. South
Africa has a budget of 125 billion dollars this year.
It makes no sense that my country, the biggest in Africa
with all the natural resources, has a budget of only 8 billion
dollars. Something is wrong. We are going to restructure the
functioning of the state, of the governance system to make
sure that all the revenues go to the national budget and are
used to develop the country.
Can you be optimistic about the corruption in the
country?
Congolese are not corrupt by birth, nor is any other human
being on this earth. The system has created an environment
in which corruption can exist. The current system goes like
this: if you have a job, you work all day from morning until
evening, 30 days per month, 365 days per year. And at the
end of each month, you get paid 50 dollars, but you’re living
cost is, say, 1000 dollars.
What choice do we have then but to be corrupt? Everyone
knows that when you pay a person very little, you put them