Apart from the office of the Prime Minister (Primature), the Presidency, the Senate and a few ministries that have websites, most of the government ministries are nowhere to be found online, and only a lucky Google research can show that a certain ministry exists in the country.
And most DRC ministers and statesmen do not have Twitter accounts, while those who have accounts remain Twitter-less or have not yet sent one single Tweet, a Biztechafrica investigation found.
In a country where local government is almost non-existent, municipalities, town councils and provinces (apart from Katanga Province) are not friends with the internet, and other state institutions not having websites include Parliament and the infamous Ndjili International Airport.
Nevertheless, state institutions that have an online presence are struggling to update their information, forcing online users to only “get what they see”.
Even the ministry of posts, telecommunications and ICTs, whose boss has been described by some sections of local media as ‘the man at the forefront of ICT revolution’, has only recently launched its digital portal. And this ministry’s Facebook page has only 43 ‘likes’ and has not been updated since 18 June 2012.
“It makes it difficult for people looking for information on the country’s ICTs to find it promptly,” Daniel Lubamba, a member of diaspora, who recently returned to the country after two decades told Biztechafrica.
“This is a parody of digital revolution, and it’s a shame for a country of such magnitude and a wealth of natural resources,” he added.
One Facebook user wrote on the ministry of PT-ICTs page on 13 February 2014: “How come such a vital ministry doesn’t have a website andyet it deals with new technology. It is shameful. If you have a website, please make it public so that people can access it. Besides, it isdeplorable that your Facebook page does not even have an audience, just 29 Likes!”
Another Facebook user wrote on 11 May this year: “Good evening, I’m doing some work on ICT in the DRC, but I can’t find the country’s policy document online. What should I do to get it? Please help me.”
Technology analyst Jean-Albert Longange told Biztechafrica. “There is no way in the world this Facebook user could have known because the ministry had no website. E-government in the DRC is non-existent and this complicates citizens’ free access to information and institutionalises the lack of transparency and accountability because nobody knows what the government is doing.”
Despite all the government talk and noise about modernising the country, the DRC however still has no formal ICT policy, as Dr Delphin Bugigi Kyubwa wrote in his book Le Congo et l'Absence de Politique Nationale de Technologie Moderne (“Congo and the lack of modern technology policy”) published in 2009.
“A national policy of ICTs to modernise the management of public resources, as well as external aid, will meet the priority needs of the country and attract the confidence of donors and investors,” Dr Kyubwa wrote.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Issa Sikiti da Silva
Quelle/Source: BiztechAfrica, 06.08.2014
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