Poor in west DR Congo unimpressed by anti-poverty drive

DR Congo’s president, who is seeking re-election, came to office pledging to help those in dire poverty, but in remote areas little has changed.

Felix Tshisekedi, 60, is running for a second term in a December 20 election. After taking power in 2019, he waived primary school fees — his flagship social policy — and rolled out free maternity care in the capital Kinshasa.

More Congolese children are in classrooms than ever before. But most people in the Democratic Republic of Congo remain trapped in grinding poverty and see little change.

In the small village of Camp Pay, in western DRC’s Kwilu province, farmer Victor Mukala said he felt let down.

“The head of state owes us a debt, he hasn’t kept his promise,” he said.

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Despite its vast mineral wealth, the DRC is one of the world’s poorest countries, plagued by corruption, mismanagement and conflict in its east.

About two-thirds of the population of 100 million people live on under $2.15 a day, according to the World Bank.

Tshisekedi’s government is emphasising its pro-poor social policies to voters ahead of next month’s poll.

Augustin Kabuya, the secretary general of the president’s UDPS party, called free primary education a “great achievement”.

“Poor parents weren’t sending their children to school,” he said, explaining that the policy had put two million extra children in school nationwide.

Packed classrooms

Free primary schooling has been widely praised but its implementation has been criticised.

Valery Madianga, from the Kinshasa-based Research Centre for Public Finance and Local Development, told AFP that the quality of schooling had suffered.

Classes are now packed with 80-100 children, he said, piling huge workloads on teachers.

The teachers are also impacted by soaring inflation, which in October had risen to 22 percent compared to the previous year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Life is tough for many, Madianga said, and many at the same time see a small elite enriching itself.

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Madeleine Matondo, 33, a mother from the village of Kakoyi in Kwilu, 520 kilometres (325 miles) east of the capital Kinshasa, said she wanted secondary school fees to be waived as well.

Secondary school fees are about $50 a year, she said — a huge sum for people without salaries.

“Either you make it free, or you create conditions to give jobs to parents,” said Matondo, who was preparing a meal of maize over a wood fire.

The same morning in Kakoyi, dozens of adolescents in school uniform were wandering around: They’d been turfed out of school for non-payment of fees.

‘Not enough’

Solange Tambwe, a mother of four in Kakoyi, said daily problems went beyond school fees.

“Here there’s no drinking water, not enough food,” she said.

Nearby, Agnes Kutameka was sifting rice in her small informal restaurant.

“Look at the quality of the water for the washing,” Kutameka said, showing a basin filled with milky-looking liquid.

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“Even the drinking water is dirty, the children suffer from amoebas, some of them die, ” said the 60-year-old woman.

“Ask the authorities why they don’t bother about our fate,” she said.

In the region, local initiatives attempt to fill the gap left by the state.

In a field in the village of Kata-Luwala, men and women were working together to replant that a recent storm had uprooted.

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They were all members of a local association founded by Viviane Lengelo, 63, a widow who owns some 20 hectares (nearly 50 acres) of forest, as well as a piggery and fish ponds.

Lengelo explained, while feeding her pigs, that her proceeds go towards empowering women, because “poverty has more to do with women”.

But she said she was worried about the ageing rural work force: “Youngsters aren’t interested in agriculture anymore”.

She also listed petty corruption from bureaucrats and the police, as well as a lack of roads, education and healthcare —  in short, most basic services — as dire problems facing the poor.

– By: © Agence France-Presse