• Paralyzing the institution

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has not yet sent its representatives to the Secretariat of the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (CEPGL), neither has it submitted its annual contributions to the organization for two years.

This was revealed Monday by the organisation’s Executive Secretary, Ambassador Gabriel Toyi, in an interview with The New Times .

Ambassador Toyi said that the DRC owes about US$ 480,000 to the CEPGL because it has not yet submitted its contributions for the years 2007 and 2008.

DRC’s delay to send its three representatives has made the organisation’s efforts to organise Heads-of-States’ meetings and attract more funds for CEPGL projects, ineffective, Toyi said.

"We have failed to understand why [Congo doesn’t send its representatives]. Some say that there is a problem of administration but we haven’t got any official version on this,” said Ambassador Toyi.

Member countries of CEPGL have to pay their annual contributions to the organisation and send three permanent workers and representatives to work from its Headquarters in Gisenyi, Western Rwanda.

Burundi and Rwanda paid their contributions and sent their representatives to the organisation’s offices.

Toyi said that the Congolese government keeps promising that it will send its representatives but the Secretariat has kept waiting for this to happen.

Asked  when the DRC last promised to send her representatives, Toyi replied that the Congolese Foreign Affairs Minister promised to send them before the end of December 2008.  

"We met leaders on the Congolese side and we are still waiting,” he said.

Rwandan authorities say the Congolese delay to send representatives totally blocks the organisation’s activities.

"They don’t say why they are not sending their representatives and this is paralyzing the institution,” said Samuel Munyakayanza, in-charge of Regional Economic Communities in Rwanda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

He observed that CEPGL will continue to spend money on administrative costs and re-branding its offices only, because it will not be able to take any decision to carry out any activities without the consent of the Congolese side.

"It is a big gap,” Munyakayanza said of the absence of DRC representatives.

The CEPGL which was created on 20th September 1976 is a sub-regional block which comprises institutions shared by Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.

Its major aims are to foster security, economic integration and facilitate the movement of goods and people.

Following a 2007 CEPGL Ministerial meeting in Burundi that called for designing ways of re-launching CEPGL’s activities, the organisation started projects to develop agriculture and increase hydro-electric power production in member States. 

The New Times was not able to reach DRC’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mbussa Nyamwisi, to say something about the issue.

He was apparently out of the country, according to his secretary.

Ends