Bits and pieces

While there’s been plenty of skittish talk around Kinshasa and sightings of Bemba’s guards with their red bandanas but yesterday’s midnight ultimatum has passed and so far, there’s no fighting in the streets.

Apparently the risk was enough to prompt some organisations to impose a curfew last night and others to limit circulation yesterday. In fact, folks around town were concerned enough that hardly anyone showed up at the cholera control meeting to discuss the cases that have been sneaking over to this side of the river from Brazzaville.

Meanwhile the Phantom Minister still holds office.

A cool drink of water

When you’ve got a disease outbreak on your hands, it’s a fine line between communicating prevention messages to the masses and avoiding mass hysteria. So when cholera broke out on the Brazzaville side of the Congo River, the government wisely decided to keep things a bit under wraps until after the Africa Youth Championship football match.

Meanwhile, an NGO that had recently launched a home water treatment project was busy disseminating a few communication messages on preventing water-borne disease. Sounds like a great idea, right?

Apparently the Ministry of Water and Energy didn’t think so. The communication messaging hit home a bit more than anyone had expected and the Brazzavillians began to refuse their water bills, claiming they should not have to pay for dirty water.

The Ministry, used to creative problem solving, quickly identified the culprit of said debacle: the NGO — and proceeded with a threat to shut the project down.

Keep in mind that this is the government that spent more sending the president and his entourage to the UN last year than the British government’s foreign assistance programme for the country. This is also the same government that stole USDA-surplus food which was intended to support another NGO’s humanitarian activities. Cheeky, eh?

Is it any wonder that our neighbour on the other side of the river ranked third (DRC is of course ranked first) on the list of the world’s hardest countries in which to do business?