Raphael Kutota Basisa takes on the “Emphytheose de Moanda”
Finally we hear something positive from the old country. One of the first time since leaving the Democratic Republic of Congo back in 1982; it is not war, it is not an epidemic disease ravaging lives, and it is not pillaging and nor it is starvation. It's a big relief.
But why then the Congolese public opinion on the “Emphytheose de Moanda” is so low?
For a poor country such as this one; who had gone through over three decades of tremendous economic decline, any symptom of economic development promise should be embraced with wide-open arms. So, what is going on out here!
As a young salesman, I was trained to overlook all “Nays” from prospects. Obviously, “Nays” do not always mean “Nay”. A “Nay” may simply mean “need more information before I say “Yeah”.” Or perhaps just “still have issues that need to be ironed-out first”. Thus, it is dutiful for the person selling to always gauge other non-verbal indices to pin-out where seats the objection that is impeding the trip to closing process. It is a sort of reading between lines to find to zero-in on a set of opposing opinions, get them resolved before you observe a new free flow. This is where good salesmanship and experience come into play: this is what will distinguish one salesman against anther and also will determine success or lost sale.
Our beloved Congo is now struggling to regain its balance and dignity. After 80 years of Belgian colonialism and 32 years of Mobutism, the trust of the people of the Congo vis-à-vis to any foreign and its own stately authority is null to the ground:
We've burned too many times – We've been deceived long enough!
We trust no one - We trust nothing.
So far, no one has taken the time to massage our scars of the century and half of brutality, abuse, and breach of trust; and suddenly under abrupt ways, we are confronted to make a decision on the “Deal of the Century”.
The Emphytheose de Moanda is a series of several grand public works projects a kind of mixture of the scale of around Boulder Dam in Nevada and the Tennessee Valley projects along the Colorado River in the United States and the type of Panama Canal development. These public works will be part of a private/public consortium from several western countries and western corporations. The consortium intends to execute a 99-year land lease for a small town called Moanda (the source point of the project's name) and also to incorporating the surrounding of couple millions of square miles of raw and semi-developed land within the confined of the province of the Bas-Congo where the project physical asset installations will take residence (one percent of the country's total territory). The project total cost estimates as of 1996 dollar will be in the range of multi-trillions of dollars. The development phase alone will take two to three decades and will yield in several millions of new jobs created.
African political leaders have always complained about the difficulties in attracting Direct Foreign Investments (FDI) into their countries. Please trust me on this, this Emphytheose de Moanda is the Great Grand-Daddy's of all FDI's. The Democratic Republic of Congo will be the beneficiary of a monthly rent of 1.2 Billion dollar over the life of the charter (compare this amount against the 2006 total budget of D.R. Congo of 1.4 Billion dollar). An astronomical monthly amount that could revolutionize not just the country of D. R. Congo, but the entire bowl of Africa .
The American president Franklin Deleno Roosevelt is the statesman credited for the ending of the Economic Depression of the 1930's in the United States . President Roosevelt introduced major economic development stimuli by instituted state funding for mega pubic works to create employment for the millions of urban and rural people and the interior development of the country. He enacted much legislation during his first 100 days in the office – these legislations resulted in public agencies responsible for managing, financing, contracting grandesque projects such as the two recited above. Mega public works has long been recognized as a good strategy for getting a country's economic wheel rolling again.
Adolph Hitler and his third Reich in Germany reconstructed their country's economy from the devastations of world war one by putting hundreds of thousands of destitute Germans back to work by building the infamous “Auto Bahn” and many other grandiose public works in the same manners.
New Zealand in the 1950's followed similar strategy to prosperity.
Currently, South Korea , China , and other Asian countries are doing the same thing. The famous “Three Gorge Dam” in China is one of the most recent examples for deploying big project to stimulate general stagnation in a country's economy.
African countries need not try to re-invent the wheel. This project pretty much landed on their lap, they did not burn any kilo joules to cause it the incentive to come their way. You should see it as a God sent.
Some countries in the world such as the Persian Gulf countries had found their salvation with Petroleum endowment. I found it very troubling for that this country is endowed with numerous river rapids and its people balks at harnessing that God given advantage into tools for propulsion of their own economy. Every one is using their own natural surpluses.
It is the responsibility for the country's leaders to convince their constituents that this proposal is truly needed by presenting to them to the way that it is acceptable for the general public to feel we can move forth. One possibility is to give the following promises a “Private Trust Fund” will be created to act as fiduciary for the Congolese common man and woman because there are still trust issues that need to be regenerated in regards to the country's political leadership.
This Private Trust Fund will be governed by a 27 member trans-national board among which:
6 appointments will come from the Governor of the province of Bas-Congo only if the governor is democratically elected and acting as head of state and the country adopts a federal type of republic with independent provinces.
6 appointments: (3) by the governing body and (3) investors members of the Emphytheose itself.
10 appointments from the governors of the other provinces (excluding Bas-Congo) – one for each province and the one extra post on rotating basis continually.
3 appointments by the Prime minister of the D. R. Congo.
1 appointment by the General Secretary of the United Nations.
1 appointment by the General Secretary of the African Union.
All 27 appointees will take post as volunteers.
The 27 members by way of election will select one amongst them as an acting Chair person and the chair person in turn will appoint his or her vice-chair.
All members will serve two consecutive 5-year terms maximum.
The Board Mission :
1. the chair will be responsible for setting the agenda and will not have any voting power. Though will be charged for coasting ties in the case of such occurrence.
2. the board will be responsible for insuring transparency and that money reaches the needs of the larger portion of the population; the very poor. Insure that benefits of this project are trickled down to every spectrum of the social fabric equally throughout the entire country.
3. the board will be responsible for promoting investment in public infrastructure: schools, roads, bridges, hospitals, public transportation, health care system infrastructures, and educational system infrastructures.
4. the board will be responsible for promoting investment in large public works to induce employment opportunities for the locals and removing the country's economy from the current stagnation.
5. the board will be responsible for promoting investment in industrial development for sustaining the economy in the long run by shifting it from the dependency on extract and export low value raw material to foreign markets into the labor intensive manufacturing and raw material transforming industry producing high value goods to compete in the worldwide market.
As I am writing this I understand that my critics will have a field day, screaming “sovereignty of an independent state” as defense.
My response to these commentators is there should only be a small percentage of the lease rental funds that can be allocated directly into the Congolese government treasury. These governments still display elements similar to the track records of the past half a century of misappropriation and misuse of public funds and financial immaturity. It is as though these governments have not yet been able to convince their own citizens that they represent their best interests.
The 27-member board and the mission as spelled above should be in force for the first 25 years of the Emphytheose de Moanda and also part of the bargaining for its approval and part of the land lease contract. The 27-member board will be given the power to negotiate with the country's government at the end of that twenty-five year term whether to continue its lease fund management on behalf of the people for an additional 25 years or end it at that. The option will be to serve a maximum of two consecutive twenty five years terms and revert the remainder back to the government of the country. Hopefully by that time adequate financial maturity and competency will be in place in the land.
Another item of utmost importance is that this project as presented is completely one sided at the gain of the western consortium. To accept it as proposed is as to ignore all the current socio-economic and historical realities that the people of the Congo have experienced vis-à-vis to the foreign powers coming into this land while it is convenient for them to get what they want and pulling the plug when is no longer convenient and leaving the local to pick up the pieces. We have seen it during independence, during cold war, and now during war on terror era.
Now, because “No” is not an option and we would like to see this plan become reality, we are willing to seat with the promoters and renegotiate the terms. We want to design to the way that some of the money of the rich to finally reach the desperate needs of the poor – “The Trickle down Effect”. That is our objective. Under these conditions we are confident that we can move forward from the current “just say NO” to “Just Do It” with some conditions.
My objective for this article is not to revisit past wrongs nor regenerate new dilemmas into question. But it is only wise, given the scale for what is at stake here, to query the matters that are still presented with bit of uncertainty.
Will an old manmade economic experiment that happened to be successful in the Island of Hong Kong in Asia in the late 1800's be able to duplicate in the same manner in the land of Africa (taking into account that Economics is not an exact science as Mathematics).
If this economic experiment can be successful in Africa as well, would it benefit all the economic classes of the fabric of the Congolese society? Or just the usual few - top class country elites?
How can we trust anyone (especially the westerners pushing this project) to insure that everyone will receive an equitable portion of royalty revenue from this project this time around while the same protection were not afforded to the Congolese people during colonial and Mobutu's eras?
Who will be the fiduciary for the Congolese people at the negotiation table: the western consortium? Or the Congolese government? Historically neither of these two parties has represented the Congolese people at paramount. Why should it be believed that people's representation by either one will happen this time around?
It is about time to resolve these inquiries and put the investigation under rest. That way we can move forward starting with a clean slate – a hopeful path to a new and bright future for all.
There is a lot of blame to go around. But this is neither the place nor the time for discussing it.
This country and this continent are in desperate need for this scale level of assistance to reclaim its pride and balance. Let's all return our support by backing these four middle – age gentlemen former Sabena airliners who have just as much emotion as you and I and witnessed over the past four decades how things have deteriorated far beyond the point that no one envisioned in the early 1960's. That is why it is not accidental that they be the ones that have taken initiative to push some thing with such a positive flavor forth rather than our own African or Congolese intellectuals, civil servants, university students and professors, etc.
Author: Raphael Kutota Basisa, MBA
Mailing Address: P. O. Box 561085
Charlotte , North Carolina 28256-1085
Tel: (704) 493 – 1494
E-mail: RKBASISA@YAHOO.COM
January 15, 2008
About the Author
Raphael Kutota Basisa, MBA
Has taken the time to forward his opinion on the dilemma of the “Emphytheose de Moanda” because he is very familiar with the landscape and the economic potential around the locality of Moanda and the Chataractes of Bas-Congo in overall: he is a former pupil of “Athene de Moanda” which he attended as a forth and fifth grade boy between 1970 to 1972 and his family lived in the nearby Military Base “Kitona” (1969 to 1972).
Raphael immigrated to the US in 1984 to attend University and is currently a naturalized United States Citizen. He has a Bachelor Degree in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University and a Master of Business Administration from Pfeiffer University . He had completed tremendous research in Real Estate Investment and Development and in Economic Development.
Raphael is a Business Entrepreneur: a Real Estate Investor and Developer and a professional consultant specializing in Economic Development. From 2002 to 2007 he served as member of the City of Charlotte Privatization and Competition Advisory Committee and from October 2006 to July 2007 served as member of the Board of Directors for the Mecklenburg County Community Relations. He was a candidate for local municipal elective office for the City of Charlotte where he lives in 2005 and 2007.
Raphael is a widower and father of two children: Raphael Jr – 20 years old and Shardene – 17 years old.
Raphael is the author of one book and several other news articles on Economic Development.
