GREETING MESSAGE FROM THE HONORABLE SAMY BADIBANGA NTITA

GREETING MESSAGE FROM THE HONORABLE SAMY BADIBANGA NTITA, FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, ON NEW YEAR 2020

Dear compatriots,

The year 2019 ended years of political crisis that paralysed our country. It ended with institutions in place that can in 2020 tackle the building sites of the success of the Republic. They are immense, like our Nation which they all belong to all of us to consolidate.

The year 2020 opens with the renewed hope for profound changes: progress for all by guaranteeing rights and the rule of law, access to health, education and training, decent and sustainable jobs, and access to finance for entrepreneurs.

These are major challenges, inevitable in the democratisation and construction of our Republic. They are immense and require a strong political will, at the level of the legitimate hopes and expectations of citizens. Let the political actors take it for granted: the time is for the realisation of change, and not for personal or partisan ambitions.

To meet our national challenges, it is imperative to exceed the horizon of the electoral deadlines of 2023. It is just as important to have a united political coalition and not a facade, which does not enter into the games of cohabitation who doesn’t say his name. It will also be necessary to clarify the political game, so that a political debate takes place between a majority and an opposition which must organise itself.

Because the reality and the daily life in our Republic is still very difficult, even terrible in certain provinces. Insecurity and the humanitarian crisis, which affects 16 million people, including 5 million children, is undoubtedly the first of the national emergencies.

Despite the 2018 international conference we launched, the humanitarian crisis persists. All means that can be mobilised at the national and international level must be used to help all the victims and displaced persons, all those who are afraid, who are fleeing and who are hungry all over the Republic.

Beyond the humanitarian crisis and insecurity, these are deep reforms that we must undertake in 2020. It is about making trade accessible to all, the tax system legible and incentive to investment. It’s about multiplying public resources to wage the war on poverty. It is about ensuring the transparency of public affairs, by passing an anti-corruption law which gives the Republic the legal and human means to put an end to it.

In this spirit, and in collaboration with the President of the Republic, in the context of the presidential majority, we are working on a Sustainable Security and Transformation Strategy to mobilize human and financial resources at national and international level, on the one hand to resolve the humanitarian and security crisis, on the other hand to set up reforms of deep transformation of our public finances, the economy and the social one, and finally to collect the financing necessary for the investment in infrastructures and the diversification of the ‘economy.

My Dear compatriots, in calm and respect for all, for peace, the rule of law and the progress of all, I count on you, and in particular on all Progressives, to participate and support the transformation of our Nation. The building blocks for the success of the Republic need everyone’s energy, will and work.

“There is nothing so powerful as a Republic where you observe the law not out of fear but out of passion,” said Montesquieu. Let us build this Republic as quickly as possible, which protects each and everyone to allow the exercise of freedoms and prosperity in solidarity.

May the beginning of the year bring joy, prosperity, peace and hope to your families across the country.

God bless the Democratic Republic of Congo and its people.

Done in Kinshasa, on December 31, 2019

BADIBANGA NTITA Samy