Kinshasa 2002

Overview:

The recent history of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has been one of civil war and corruption.   DR Congo is a vast country with immense economic resources and, until recently, has been at the center of what some observers call "Africa's world war", with widespread civilian suffering the result.  The war claimed an up to six million lives, either as a direct result of fighting or because of disease and malnutrition.  The war had an economic as well as a political side. Fighting was fueled by the country's vast mineral wealth, with all sides taking advantage of the anarchy to plunder natural resources.  Some militias fight on in the east, where a large United Nations force is struggling to keep the peace. Opposition leader candidate Félix Tshisekedi became president in January 2019 after protracted political wrangling in the wake of a controversial election the previous month. 

Source: BBC Country Profile

American Embassy Kinshasa:

The inspection took place between February 20 and March 6, 2002.  Bob Barbour replaced Fred Rondon as our Team Leader.  Bob was from Memphis, Tennessee, had served as Ambassador to Suriname and before that Madrid and Paramaribo as DCM.  He had three postings in Saigon and Hue.  He was gentle man and highly intellectual.  We both read detective Maigret crime novels by the French writer Georges Simenon (in French).  Bob passed away in February 2021, at the age of 94 in Vienna, VA.  

There were 51 U.S. direct-hire and 233 Foreign Service Nationals including local guards.  I ran into the issue of having local-hire guards versus contract guards on occasion.  OIG felt that there should be contract with a company to provide guard services as opposed to the embassy HR hiring and servicing guard salaries, benefits and allowances. The Management Officer was Margaret "Meg" Keeton who had a good reputation in AF.  I had an interesting consultation with Meg who complained about the Regional Security Officer (RSO) not attending admin staff meetings.  This was a recent bone of contention ever since the determination was made to have the RSO report to the DCM vice Management Officer in the late 90's.  She also didn't agree that local guards should be local-hire employees but under an umbrella contract.   The FMO was Tom Schmitz, an Admin Generalist on his first FMO tour and enthusiastic to learn.  The embassy for the Republic of the Congo was also housed with embassy Kinshasa because there was no official American presence in the capital Brazzaville.  This situation required regional HR and FMO support of local staff who commuted from Brazzaville   

Findings:

In the area of government-owned real property OIG recommended that the embassy dispose of two underutilized residential properties and a vacant lot. The senior local-hire GSO property supervisor was under investigation for diverting furniture an equipment form the warehouse.  Also, for facilitating the submission of bogus bids for sale of property and then selling to friends at reduced prices.     

Overall management needed to urge the International Cooperative Administrative Support Services (ICASS) council and the working group to work more closely with other agencies and define uniform service standards.

Human Resources was headed by German national, Helga Muller, a long-time well regarded PSC.  Better coordination was needed with HR/OE to review its Foreign Service national benefit plans and continue to monitor the situation with respect to salary surveys. A policy on use of overtime needed to be issued reminding staff that all overtime must be approved in advance.   An alternative hiring mechanism for English language teachers that meets legal requirements needed to be established that protects against potential liability claims.

There should be a memorandum of understanding with Embassy Brazzaville summarizing the regional financial management officer’s and human resource specialist’s responsibilities and establish a schedule of visits when Embassy Brazzaville resumes operations. There was an outstanding fiscal irregularity involving the previous cashier code that needed to be cleared.

Highlights:

• Not much to do in Kinshasa given security concerns but walk around the area of the Grand Hotel and along the Congo river.  We did find a local Lebanese restaurant that we frequented for lunch.   
  
  

Ambassador's residence located along the Congo river where I walked past most every day.