Kinshasa, March 15th of 2022.

Famous politician of the DRC, Moïse Katumbi, has been taking the world by storm; first he got pardoned by Félix Tshisekedi in late 2020, then in 2021, he took control of the UDPS, who is now the DA.

Now, in 2022, Katumbi is looking towards increasing his political image and ensuring that he is seen as a determined leader; he wants his platform to be shown to the media and to the populace in a clear manner so that his chances of possibly getting elected as President in the next election is increased; its with that support, that Katumbi went out in the streets and asked the population to sign a petition, as a show of support, for the discussion of a new bill in the National Assembly.

The Tshisekedi government had been talking for a while about the development of its oil reserves and contacting international corporations, American, Chinese and Russian, to survey the suspected oil reserves that the DRC has; this has spurned Katumbi into pushing a new policy to the government.

On March 28th, Katumbi started a meeting in the National Assembly to discuss a few things, specifically, how corruption is affecting the DRC. He brought data, and debated for hours on end with Kabilist politicians and the older generation of politicians about the state of the DRC, he then later mentioned the parastatal Cohydro, and how its lack of transparency and suspected fraudulent behavior is damaging the status of the DRC as an international partner and how the commercialization of hydrocarbons can be thoroughly damaged by it.

Katumbi continues the discussion by lamenting the “patronage disease”, as he calls it, of the DRC and of resource-rich countries in general; he mentions that the government is filled with corrupt cronies, and that the very development of the Congolese petroleum industry is being harmed by the interests of the regime. While Tshisekedi has not been proven to be corrupt, nor has his favoritism been shown, Katumbi has pointed his fingers towards the Minister of Hydrocarbons and softly indicated that he is to blame for the lack of development of the Congolese oil exploration. Moïse has thus demanded that the government reform the ministerial position, granting it based on merit and competence, and not on patronage and a concession system between political parties and ethnic lines. Katumbi has expressed that he feels that the fact that the Minister of Hydrocarbons needs to be loyal, means that a kakistocracy has been growing in the energy sector, and it has been quickly spreading to all other sectors of Congolese society and economy.

Katumbi then expresses his views on the appointment of officials which are completely incapable to manage their roles appropriately, and receive their salaries solely to be present at the workplace; this means that the energy sector, especially in the petroleum industry, is filled to the brim with people that are unable to exercise their roles. Those in more senior positions lack basic geology training, or even any prior experience in the oil industry.

In the National Assembly, Katumbi even invited one of the former employees of Cohydro to provide a testimonial on the corruption culture inside his workplace, and he mentioned that he got eventually sidelined by his superiors and his co-workers due to his unwillingness to participate in the corruption. The abuses got so bad, that he eventually was forced to resign; it was at that point in the National Assembly meeting that the man broke down into tears.

Katumbi, finding strength on the courage of the man to be present in front of the Assembly to provide his testimonial, has brought forward solutions to the corruption problems in Cohydro and in the energy sector of the DRC, and these include the following:

• The establishment of new government regulations for hiring new employees in parastatal Cohydro, including high-level officers; the employees must be experienced in the oil industry and must have the necessary university degrees, along with having no previous affiliation with political parties – for the high-ranking officials.

• The development of a new system for salary record-keeping, including publishing the data online, will aid with tax evasion and with inconsistent salary recor* ds; this, combined with a system to log in hours at the parastatal, will allow the government to more efficiently monitor who is working and who is simply taking advantage of their privileged position.

• The drafting of new, robust legislation which allows for further transparency by the Congolese government, this means providing the population and investors with important information about Cohydro, such as revenue, expenditure, oil output, oil reserves, salary data, employee data, and all of the other important measures that allows the construction of trust between corporations and international investors.

All of this, of course, fell flat on its face as it was met with harsh, brutal opposition from Kabilists; they accused Katumbi of lacking any real proof of any of this, and that Katumbi should have “stayed in exile for the fraud he committed”. The debate turned heated, with the Kabilists arguing that it’s ineffective, and lacks any tangible benefits for the DRC, amplifying its already bloated bureaucracy. The leader of the National Assembly, Jeannine Mabunda, ended up delaying the voting procession until the media spark died out, before the bill failed with a whimper by late June of 2022; much to the dismay of Katumbi, who was sparking the fires of anti-Kabila support in the population by using the angle that the Kabilists are trying to hide their wrongdoings in Cohydro.

The media asked Katumbi for some kind of commentary on the bill failing, and he told the following to the cameras:

"This is an obvious ploy, the attempt of bureaucrats to delay the process and then kill the bill later; it's shameful, but until the people notice, and the people demand change, there is nothing that we can do about it. Corruption in the DRC cannot stand, and I repeat, it cannot; if this keeps on and on, the Congolese kakistocracy will grow to unprecedented levels and our entire nation will be left to eat the scraps and the ruins of the elite. To conclude, I would really like to ask everyone to pay attention to their elected officials, keep 'em in check, and demand change. Always. Demand. Change."