Politics overshadow DRC development

摘要

THE past 12 months in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have been eventful. The first free general elections since independence were held in July 2006 under the supervision of UN-mandated European Force. In October 2006, Joseph Kabila was re-elected president, with large support from the local mining community. The DRC's economy remains extremely fragile following the collapse of the mining sector in the 1990s and the widespread pillage of the country's natural resources during two successive wars. In 2006,57 percent of the state budget (2.2 billion US dollars) came from international aid and 80 percent of the economy was'underground'. According to World Bank figures, the country's external debt amounted to 12 billion US dollars in 2005. Martin Kabwelulu Labilo, University of Lubumbashi economics professor, was appointed mining minister in February. In June, Mr Kabwelulu opened a commission to deal with the prickly issue of reviewing some 60 mining contracts between the government and private investors during the past 10 years. For this task, he is flanked by a deputy minister who is widely known in the mining industry, Victor Kasongo Shomary, who quit his job as managing director of government-owned mining company Okimo in February. The commission is set to complete in August, though a panel member recently said that the enormous workload would delay-results until at least October.