Cooperation: mines and security will be part of Félix Tshisekedi's trip to Beijing
The Congolese president will make his first trip to China on May 26, several ministerial sources confirmed to Jeune Afrique.
This trip takes place in a context marked by the Congolese government's demand for the reassessment of what has been described as the "contract of the century", the agreement between Chinese companies and the Congolese government represented by Gécamines, signed in 2008, bearing exchange of mines for infrastructure.
Last February, the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) had mentioned, in a damning report, the imbalance in this contract.
Of the 12 billion dollars collected in the exploitation of minerals by Chinese companies, according to the IGF, only 820 million were allocated to infrastructure works for the benefit of the DRC.
A report also contested by the Chinese side.
Currently, the two parties are in talks to reach an amendment.
In addition to this sensitive issue, Tshisekedi and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will discuss security issues, in a context where the DRC is shaken by a war of Rwandan aggression in its eastern part.
China could provide the DRC with necessary military equipment.
mediacongo
* To add, I see where,
Public finance: the more the budget increases, the more the crisis also increases?
Observation of a modest literary man.
The tripling, or even more, of the budget does not translate into a slight improvement on the social front.
Not the ounce of a thaw to borrow the lexicon of the weather.
Quite the contrary. Time never stops spoiling. The sky is ever darkening.
As evidenced by these prices on the market which look up when they do not make fun of the flattering figures, brandished by the white collars of the Government.
By also testifying to these remunerations, for some time, with an elastic deadline to which all the agents, despite themselves, have just subscribed to the State budget which has been multiplied by more than three.
Witness, "last but not least", the housewife's bag whose content does not know the slightest beginning of multiplication.
In a country where everyone has become, as if by the magic of infused science, a specialist in everything, we are careful not to play the "toutologue", or to play the "nionsologue" (a know-it-all).
Any more than we can claim in economics to do like Monsieur Jourdain who wrote prose without knowing it.
Nothing but popular sentiment and the arguably naïve questions worthy of a layman that arise from it.
Namely, what would be the interest of the average Congolese to know that the budget of his country has increased significantly if his ordinary does not change one iota?
How to explain to the man in the street that the country has gotten a little richer, while he continues to struggle as usual?
Maybe even a little more?
It's a bit like a father who announces that he has been substantially increased without this salary increase having the slightest impact on the lifestyle of the household.
This would raise legitimate questions.
Hence, the myriad of questions that Congolese are asking about this lack of nexus between the budget and the cost of living.
Did we of course have 16 billion?
My neighbor confirms that yes.
And that to refresh our failing memory, he reminds us that the Government had celebrated this almost quadrupling of the budget as a historic achievement.
A feat, not a fairy tale.
A miracle, not a mirage.
What is surprising is that with a budget three times smaller, things were going less badly than today.
It is to lose its Latin or - tropics oblige - its Lingala. Kokamwa!
(This is surprisingly).
mediacongo
Food for thought
Frank
