DRC fails to decentralise
The current constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) came into effect in 2006 and set out a plan for decentralisation, which included the fragmentation of the existing 11 provinces at the time into 26 new provinces by the end of 2009. In addition to the restructuring of local government, the constitution made provisions for each province to retain 40% of its internally produced revenues. However, more than seven years after the constitution was promulgated and four years after the initial deadline for decentralisation was set there are still only 11 provinces in DRC (the ten regional provinces and one city-province ‘Kinshasa’) and none have been allowed to keep 40% of revenues generated. Also, another and perhaps more crucial unfulfilled constitutionally mandated event has been the failure to hold provincial and local elections since 2006. The process of decentralisation has hardly got off the ground but could regain some momentum ahead of the next presidential elections scheduled for late 2016, which is likely to see power struggles between the provincial political elites and with the Kinshasa based central government. Should the current climate of insecurity, patronage networks and vested interests continue to prevail in the DRC then any steps towards greater decentralisation would need to carefully guard against the danger of simply empowering local tyrants or dominant players, particularly in the resource rich and conflict ridden eastern provinces.