KINSHASA: When new heads were appointed to Congo’s state-owned businesses, cartoonists in the crippled central African country went into overdrive, churning out caricatures of greedy politicians carving up cakes.

Doling out the management of public companies among former belligerents was part of a peace deal to end years of war that killed around four million people, mainly from hunger and disease, and left the resource-rich country in ruins.

Many Congolese fear the new bosses will milk their firms for all they can rather than investing in growth.

Local commentators, diplomats and analysts say the bickering over which former rebel or opposition group wrests control of which business from President Joseph Kabila’s allies reveals Congo’s fundamental problem: competition for wealth and power eclipsing a need for reform.

“It is nothing more and nothing less than about filling pockets,” read an editorial in Numerica, a daily in the dilapidated capital Kinshasa, describing the distribution of the jobs, announced in early August.

The paper said the international community should monitor the management of state-owned firms ‘to stop a new generation of dinosaurs from emptying the tills’.

Analysts say elections due next year will provide an extra temptation for politicians. Funds will be needed to campaign across a nation the size of Western Europe, where roads are often impassable after years of conflict.

“Since the companies are dying and mismanaged, manipulation is going to be easy,” said an economist, who preferred not to be named. “We don’t have enough rich individuals to finance the campaigns so they need to feed themselves from the beast.”

Democratic Republic of Congo has vast wealth in gold, diamonds, timber, rivers and fertile land but it has been torn apart by decades of dictatorship and years of war and chaos, leaving potentially lucrative state firms from mines to port authorities in a sorry state.

Kabila, rebels and a plethora of opposition parties and representatives from civil society agreed a peace deal during 2002 to end Congo’s latest conflict, reviving hopes that the former Belgian colony might one day fulfil its potential.

Former foes formed a transitional government and were charged with rebuilding the country and organizing the first multiparty elections in 40 years. The international community has also set up an anti-graft commission.

But old habits die hard in a country long plundered by its rulers. Former president Mobutu Sese Seko amassed a fortune during 32 years in power by siphoning Congo’s wealth through personal accounts to maintain a lavish lifestyle, pay off rivals and destroy enemies.

During Mobutu’s rule, state-owned copper mining company Gecamines produced nearly 500,000 tonnes a year and $800 million in annual revenues, giving officials ample scope to pilfer.

The days of such rich pickings may be over — production at Gecamines has all but ground to a halt and the firm is now being restructured with the help of the World Bank. The control of Gecamines was not included in the recent job distribution.

Congo’s peace deal stipulated that the positions at state-owned companies had to be shared out among the members of the transitional government.

Kabila won many of the key battles, placing allies in key positions at the helm of television and radio, a vital asset ahead of next year’s elections.

—Reuters