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Corruption in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

, which used to be an institutionalized part of the state, has been relatively lowered in recent years. However, it continues to exceed corruption in comparison to most states. The

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's DRC country profile calls its recent history "one of civil war and corruption."

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Joseph Kabila Joseph Kabila Kabange ( , ; born 4 June 1971) is a Congolese politician who served as President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between January 2001 and January 2019. He took office ten days after the assassination of his father, Presi ...

established the Commission of Repression of Economic Crimes upon his ascension to power in 2001.

History

The Mobutu era (1965–1997)

Mobutu Sese Seko Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the president of Zaire from 1965 to 1997 (known as the Democratic Republic o ...

ruled

Zaire Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...

from 1965 to 1997, looting his country's wealth for personal use to such a degree that critics coined the term "

kleptocracy Kleptocracy (from Greek κλέπτης ''kléptēs'', "thief", κλέπτω ''kléptō'', "I steal", and -κρατία -''kratía'' from κράτος ''krátos'', "power, rule") is a government whose corrupt leaders (kleptocrats) use political ...

". A relative once explained how the government illicitly collected revenue: "Mobutu would ask one of us to go to the bank and take out a million. We'd go to an intermediary and tell him to get five million. He would go to the bank with Mobutu's authority, and take out ten. Mobutu got one, and we took the other nine." The Congolese explained the lack of support from the government by the humorous '' article 15'': ''Débrouillez-vous'' ("Figure it yourself"). Mobutu institutionalized corruption to prevent political rivals from challenging his control, leading to an economic collapse in 1996. Mobutu allegedly stole up to US$4 billion while in office.

Corruption Perceptions Index

The table above shows how the Democratic Republic of the Congo fared in six successive years of

Transparency International Transparency International e.V. (TI) is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank. Based in Berlin, its nonprofit and non-governmental purpose is to take action to combat global corruption with civil ...

's ranking of 180 countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index. Countries are scored on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("highly clean") and then ranked by score; the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector and the country ranked 180th is perceived to have the most corrupt public sector.

The Kabila Era (1997–2019)

Laurent Kabila Laurent may refer to: *Laurent (name), a French masculine given name and a surname **Saint Laurence (aka: Saint ''Laurent''), the martyr Laurent **Pierre Alphonse Laurent, mathematician **Joseph Jean Pierre Laurent, amateur astronomer, discoverer ...

led an

insurgent An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric warfare, asymmetric na ...

group against Mobutu and quickly assumed power after Mobutu was overthrown. During this time period, Kabila issued a statement making himself president with near absolute power in the government. With people supporting him for overthrowing Mobutu, he was not initially met with much public opposition. However, Kabila's and his government's goals for the regime were said to be unclear and vague. He refused immediate elections in fear of the country returning to Mobutuism, and continued to postpone promised elections. The constitution was not changed, and he and his peers exploited resources for their personal benefit. Laurent Kabila, led a regime that upheld corruption through

clientelism Clientelism or client politics is the exchange of goods and services for political support, often involving an implicit or explicit quid-pro-quo. It is closely related to patronage politics and vote buying. Clientelism involves an asymmetric rel ...

by appointing his clients as cabinet members. Under the Kabila regime, the DRC has failed to pull itself out of its “ collapsed state” status from when Mobutu was in power. The government has not implemented security and human rights reforms, free media, and the decentralization of power. The economy plummeted, forcing workers to be underpaid and living conditions to deteriorate. Laurent Kabila was killed in 2001 by one of his body guards in an attempted

coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...

. During that time period, The

Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

received a score of 1.9 out of 10 in the

Corruption Perception Index The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is an index which ranks countries "by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys." The CPI generally defines corruption as an "abuse of entr ...

, which reveals high levels of corruption. His son,

was elected president after Laurent Kabila's death. Joseph Kabila is working with the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

to curtail corruption and improve economy. In addition, the Commission of Economic Crimes was implemented in 2001 by President Joseph Kabila. Nonetheless, there are still reports of high ranking officials exploiting resources for their personal benefit and other forms of corruption. In 2006, the constitution changed the president's minimum age from 35 to 30 years old to include Joseph Kabila, who was 33 at the time. In 2017,

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

exposed a scheme involving overpriced

biometric passport A biometric passport (also known as an e-passport or a digital passport) is a traditional passport that has an embedded electronic microprocessor chip which contains biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of the pa ...

After Kabilas (2019–)

In June 2020, a court in the Democratic Republic of Congo found President

Felix Tshisekedi Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, S ...

's chief of staff

Vital Kamerhe Vital Kamerhe (born 4 March 1959) is a Congolese politician who is the chief of staff of President Félix Tshisekedi and leader of the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC) opposition party. Previously he was the President of the National Assembl ...

guilty of corruption. He was sentenced to 20 years' hard labour, after facing charges of embezzling almost $50m (£39m) of public funds. He was the most high-profile figure to be convicted of corruption in the DRC. However, Kamerhe was released alredy in December 2021. In November 2021, a judicial investigation targeting former president Joseph Kabila and his associates was opened in Kinshasa after revelations of alleged embezzlement of $138 million.

References

External links

Interactive world map of the Corruption Perception Index
{{Africa topic, Corruption in

Crime in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Politics of the Democratic Republic of the Congo