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Zaire ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
Parastatals
Until the economic reforms begun under IMF tutelage in
1983,
the government controlled economic policy by heavy
participation in
and ownership of enterprises, particularly those in the
mining
sector. Gécamines, the giant mining company, was a wholly
government-owned company. These parastatals, until the
reforms of
1983, were characteristically inefficient, largely because
of their
use by government elites as sources of private enrichment.
One of
the most notorious offenders was the mineral marketing
agency, the
Zairian Commerce Company (Société Zaïroise de
Commercialisation des
Minérais--Sozacom). Prior to its dissolution in 1984,
Sozacom was
under constant government pressure to surrender its export
receipts
to the treasury rather than to Gécamines for reinvestment,
and it
also had a reputation for diverting a percentage of its
receipts to
members of the Zairian elite.
The emergence in 1972 of the parastatal state marketing
offices
to monopolize the purchase of major crops, including
coffee and
cotton, was another example of corrupt government
involvement in
the economy. These monopolies were typically inefficient,
subject
to corruption, and provided only small returns for the
farmer. Of
the eleven state marketing offices created from 1971 to
1974, only
one, the Zairian Coffee Board, continued to operate in the
early
1990s.
Although by the early 1990s the government still owned
or held
a majority interest in many enterprises, including the
national
railroad and airlines, major mining and petroleum
companies, and
utilities, in theory the private sector was expected to
lead
economic growth. World Bank and IMF lending has been
predicated on
privatization and reform of state enterprises, allowing
them to be
run by competent managers free of political pressure from
the
central government. But reform appears unlikely under the
Mobutu
regime.
Data as of December 1993
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