OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kinshasa | Sunday
THE president of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Joseph Kabila, has unveiled a new cabinet that includes several aides to his assassinated father.
But Kabila did not renew the portfolio of the government’s previous number two, former interior minister Gaetan Kakudji, and a number of other ministers he inherited from his father, Laurent Kabila.
The government named by the 29-year-old president, who took over the reins of government on January 26 following the murder of his father by a bodyguard, includes 25 ministers and 12 deputy ministers.
Kabila sacked the cabinet on April 4, in a move widely seen here as a sign the young president is growing in confidence and stature at the helm of the vast central African nation as it starts edging towards peace.
A new ministry for national security and public order, formerly part of the interior ministry, was created, with former justice minister Mwenze Kongolo in charge. The interior ministry goes to former deputy minister of public order Mira Ndjoku.
Among those also dismissed were former minister of state for education Abdolaye Yerodia and minister without portfolio Pierre-Victor Mpoyo, former farming minister Mawampanga Mwana Nanga and former communications minister and government spokesman Dominique Sakombi, all close aides to Kabila’s father.
Foreign Minister Leonard she Okitundu keeps his post, as does Minister for Planning and Reconstruction Denis Kalum.
The former army commander started making changes last month after initially retaining the team his father had put together on November 20 last year.
The country has since August 1998 been torn apart by a civil war in which Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe have deployed troops to shore up the DRC government against rebel movements backed by Rwanda and Uganda.
The young Kabila, more conciliatory then his father, has revived the Lusaka peace accord signed in 1999, which calls for a pullback from the front lines of soldiers and rebel forces, along with a deployment of UN observers currently under way. – AFP
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