Observation deplorable
Embezzlement of public funds, corruption, kickbacks, leakage of revenue, flight and/or laundering of capital, so many scourges which are eating away at the DRC economy, polluting the business climate and giving rise to a negative perception of the DRC – Democratic Republic of Congo – seen from the outside.
Despite the efforts made by the President of the Republic, Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, with initiatives to create or revitalize state services to combat these scourges, they are tough to kill.
Faced with these disasters, these services are like barking dogs. Morning, noon and night, they shout out against these scourges, boasting, like illusion sellers, their prowess in tracking down financial delinquents, without, in reality, achieving the objective for which they were created or revitalized.
Indeed, according to some objective and informed analysts, the Head of State, Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, had created or revitalized these services, with the main aim of recovering all the money that escapes the public treasury each year through mafia practices. It will even be remembered that in his time, Professor Luzolo Bambi Lessa, then special advisor to the former Head of State in the fight against corruption and money laundering, had declared that each year, at least 15 billion US dollars escape the state coffers.
Consequences harmful
The resulting financial insecurity erodes confidence in institutions and hinders any economic progress. It is difficult, if not impossible, for donors and economic operators to invest in such an uncertain environment. It is also difficult to create jobs, to promote the creation of the middle class.
On the social and political level, hotbeds of tension are fueled by the impatience of a people desperate for an improvement in their living conditions. At any moment, there is fear that the profound social and political repercussions will spill out onto the streets, with all the risks of overflowing.
So many deleterious effects that impose urgency on the part of the supreme decision-maker to rectify the situation. Better late than never, they say.
THIEF, a new policeman!
What to do to stem the haemorrhage of embezzlement and corruption? It pleased the President of the Republic, Head of State, who, solely responsible to the people, deemed it necessary to create within the ANR -National Intelligence Agency-, a DIET -Department of Economic and Financial Intelligence-. The objective is to allow the active participation of this Department in achieving economic growth, for the integral development of the country.
According to the Presidential Ordinance creating it, which came into force on August 9, 2024, the date of its signature, DIEF is the fourth department created within the ANR -National Intelligence Agency.
Not one service too many
Reading between the lines of this Presidential Order, we understand that DIEF, although equipped with a central administration, is not a service in its own right. It is rather a new department, [le quatrième]within the ANR.
As if to say that the Head of State has entrusted, this time, to the ANR the mission of reinforcing economic and financial security.
Powers extended
From research, investigation, inquiry, collection, exploitation, interpretation, dissemination and monitoring of economic, financial, digital and technological information of interest to the security of the State both nationally and internationally, on the one hand, and, on the other, to research, facilitation, protection, implementation and support of investments in the DRC, through verification, counter-verification and management control of the use of public funds, as well as surveillance and policing of the energy, telecommunications, new information technologies and cyberspace sectors, the DIEF has not left in its assignments any operation likely to bring in big money to the public treasury.
The DIEF must poke its nose into any channel through which money going to the state coffers can pass. Its assignments have gone as far as certifying the identification of subscribers to telephone operators.
Rapport between the DIEF and the specialized services
The creation of the DIEF by the Head of State has provoked reactions of various kinds among public opinion.
In accordance with the Presidential Ordinance creating it, the DIEF is endowed with several powers that will allow it to have a broader scope of action. Which leads some to say that the DIEF is reducing the power and influence of the IGF – General Inspectorate of Finance – and other specialized services of the State in the fight against corruption.
They base their argument on what they call the blunders of the chief inspector of the IGF, cited in several mafia cases with Indo-Pakistanis and the Rawji group as well as the Gécamines affair.
A point of view not shared by other analysts, who believe, on the other hand, that the DIEF has rather come to support existing specialized services, in order to further strengthen economic and financial security in the DRC.
The expansion of the DIEF’s scope of action should therefore in no way be seen as stripping existing specialist services of all their substance. Which, in truth, will not be of any interest to it in achieving its assignments.
THIEF, a panacea?
Beyond any comment, debate or consideration, it should be noted that the President of the Republic, Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, created, within the ANR, a Department of Economic and Financial Intelligence, “to enable its active participation in the achievement of economic growth for the integral development of the country.”
All the DIEF assignments converge “to guarantee the vital interests of the Nation” long threatened by the scourges and other much-criticized practices.
Let us hope that with the advent of the DIEF within the ANR, state money will never again escape the public treasury.
/acturdc.com
2024-08-14 15:57:48
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