The reason why I’m a little concerned is because katumbi actually did some pretty fundamental reforms when he was governor of Katanga province, thus his grassroots support is pretty strong.At the time when he was in power between 2007 and 2015, under a third of the province’s collapsing roads have been rebuilt in that period and access to water rose from under 5% to 67% of the population. School attendance in Katanga, where about 5 million people live, rose from 400,000 children in 2007 to 1.2 million in 2013. The share of girls at schools tripled, from 15% to 45%.
Annual revenues in his region — with 55% of the world’s cobalt production and 5% of copper — were about $100 million in 2007 when he was elected governor. By 2013, two years before the end of Katumbi’s term, the revenues had soared to $1.2 billion. Katumbi achieved this partly by halting the export of raw materials and investing heavily in local processing and refinement.
It’s for these reasons that Joseph Kabila, who also hails from Katanga, decided after oustering Katumbi in 2015 under dubious circumstances to break up Katanga province into four separate provinces, in order to divide up his power centre and put loyalists in charge of key positions in the re-oriented provincial political structure.
Katumbi bought the support of many tribal chiefs for sure in order to stick their necks out to support him in defiance of Tshisekedi’s new administration, but I’d say in the scheme of things he’s probably the least corrupt out of the lot between Tshisekedi, Fayulu and Bemba, hence why Tshisekedi would be somewhat nervous anytime someone with Katumbi’s popularity makes a political play (and it’s interesting that he has chosen to form a political coalition with Bemba for the upcoming provincial elections, at least for now, who knows given the fluidity of African politics how things will play out down the line).
Again nothing for sure here, so not a huge concern yet, but definitely something to keep an eye on. Tshisekedi has done a quite bit to roll back Kabila era corruption, at least enough to satisfy a broad swath of Congolese population. If he can maintain good progress then I’d say even Katumbi shouldn’t be too much of a long term concern.
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