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The ability to prove your ID for a bank account or for public services may be taken for granted in much of the world, but many countries still lack this basic infrastructure.
For about a billion people on the planet, there is no idea. They don't have anything that identifies them. Not an easy problem to solve, but technology is coming in the picture and things are moving really quickly. The Prime Minister, give us a sense. Don't give us just one reason. It's a big enough. I should give us two reasons, two reasons why it is essential that digital IDs are the top of your agenda in your country.
It's seen as so important that it's actually a part of the un sustainable development goals.
For the government of the DRC. Access to citizens' rights is a key aim to enable this. Proper population registry and the guarantee of a unique legal identity are.
Essential, but the push for complicated biometric ID systems has meant expensive contracts in some of the poorest countries in
the world, leaving the door open to corruption. On today's podcast, we'll explain how a twenty five million dollar shopping center in the DRC's second city, shows why the country still has no ID system and how money that was supposed to fund it may have ended up benefiting only a few I'm Jennifer's abasadjab and this is the Next Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each week from the continent driving the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg
can provide. This investigation is a partnership between Bloomberg and Lighthouse Reports reporter Thomas Statias, who's been working on this story and he is joining us this week.
So Thomas, thank you so much for your time.
I mean, it's a really fascinating story and there's so many different layers to it. But maybe before we get to the crux of the story, which is this ID card project that was turned into a shopping center, let's maybe take a step back and get some of the history. What's been behind the push for biometric ideas in Congo and other African countries, and also what made you interested in wanting to look into this.
The behind the scenes story of the push on biometrics starts like more or less ten years ago, when two institutions the UN published something called the Sustainable Development Goals, which are like the goals that the UN and humanity was to achieve by twenty thirty, and one of his goals is actually for any individual on the planet to have a certain ID card and a certain identity defined
by the States. And around the same time, essentially the World Bank, another multi electural institution, essentially start to push also for the same goal, but with the addition of a technology called the biometric technology, which is so to speak, everything that makes you unique as a person, so your fingerprint,
your iris, your behavior and so on. So those two elements combined create a real gold rush for vendors that are mostly Western vendors, a lot of those of French, German and event from the US to go to this new market, which is the continent, the African continent, to try and sell this technology to those countries. As for
the reason we wanted to get interested in that. In this fatnonership between Bloomberg and Lighthouse Reports, the investigative out that I'm working with is essentially there's a technoli solutionism narrative.
Behind biometric technology.
There's beside that technology can fix everything, it can fix election, it can fix unbalanced states, et cetera, et cetera.
And this narrative is actually quite powerful.
So we wanted to have a look at behind what's happening in some of the most extreme situations that we can find.
Wow, and this is very extreme for people who get a chance to read it. So then let's get to maybe Congo, right, because this is the country that you focus on. What was the existing ID system that was there when you and the team started looking into this.
Essentially, when we started to have a look at Congo, there are no kind of let's say, general identification system as we know it in some of other country, whether it's Southeast Asia, whether it's.
Western Europe, whether it's North America.
So in Congo, when we start to look at the system, there are no functioning idea, meaning people did not have driving licenses, the state has no idea how many citizens lived in Congo.
The last census was performed in.
Nineteen eighty four, so at the time the country was called Zaiah and the head of the state was someone that's actually I'm sure people listening to this podcast you know quite well whose name was Mobutu se Seco. So it was like forty years ago and essentially the only kind of identification that people have in day to day life.
Or voting calls, but voting call are no proof.
Of identity because essentially you can say whatever names you want to put on your voter cards because there is no unique identification system. So that was the starting pot from the investigation and along all those kinds of ideas that are not working properly in Congo. Congo had for a couple of years one of the most expensive passports in the world that costs one hundred eighty five dollars each passport essentially.
And it's one of the ten poorest countries in the world. So that seems like a contradiction.
It is a contradiction, but it is also a very important market. The last census in the RC stated that RC was populated of twenty million people. The protection by the UN state that you will be one of the giants of the African continent by twenty fifty and right now the population is estimated around one million inhabitants in Congo.
So it is quite a big market for tho the vendors.
So it is quite a hussle for all those company to try to set shop in the country, and there's a lot of money to be made, which is.
Perhaps how you know we're at the situation now and Tomas I thought it was really interesting in the story. How you know that the fact that we mentioned this in the intro, some people take advantage of the fact that they have ideas, right, But in Congo, you noted that Congolese people feel like foreigners in their own country.
They are they feel their offerings, but they're offerings.
As I said, there is no kind of notification and it makes very concrete stuff for day to day lives for the people working, for instance, in the University of Kinshasa. It means they cannot check Casher check. It means they cannot send money abroad or they cannot receive money from abroad. I remember meeting this guy around the community center in Kinshasa telling me that he was having an interview for a job to be a pull attendant at the US Embassy.
That if he doesn't have any kind of identifications, you won't be hired. Even more, you won't be authorized to go into the building because security people from the embassy would not let someone in that their identity is not certain. So it means very concrete stuff you know, for day to day life from congol citizen and this situation has been going on for for the years. It also means a lot of consequences for the government. How do you live itacks, How do you know who owns which house?
How do you send the sign to someone who are a spedding ticket to someone who's done some stuff dangerous on the road. It's impossible if you do not know the identity of the population. And that's been the situation for the last forty years.
So that gets to the opportunity then that an ID system could present. And then this additional layer of biometric databases which you were mentioning they're expensive. We talked about how Congo is one of the poorest countries in the world. What was the plan here, What was it that was being pitched?
What was being pitched the time is that essentially an ID system costs a lot of money and supposibly the ideas for FORI it to be very well spread among the population. It needs to be cheap because as you say, Congo is one of the ten poorest country in the world. You need to have incentive for people to register and so on. That the idea at first by this Belgian company called Semlex, where the time approached former ARC President
Joseph Cabina. The idea was that a very expensive passport one hundred and eighty five dollars aimed to the Congolese elite, to the elite that's still traveling on a monthly basis essentially that needs passport over and over the years, will pay for the expensive ID project for normal let's say congole Is citizens. That was being pitched in early twenty fourteen, and that's what tried to develop around like the next month, where two contracts essentially made their way through the administrative
system of Congolme State in Peril. One was for the ID card, one was for the passport. But in the end it's only the passport contract that went further that was actually the passport were created and were delivered to the congol citizen. And not to mention that deal, the passport deal is currently investigated by the prosecutor in Belgium over corruption allegation.
So then what went wrong?
What went wrong is.
Essentially, according to two sources that were very familiar with this deal, is like the money intended to be used to finance the ID card through different financial mechanism was let's say not being rooted to that purposes and being re rooted to people close to the Kabila family within different.
Ways, let's say. And one of that way that we uncovers for the first time in that story.
Is the money was used to leverage a loan to finance the construction of a big shopping center called Ichnos in Lubumbashi. Bubumbashi is the second city of the R seats in the east spouts of the R s in the mining region of Katanga.
It's the main city of Katanga.
And this building, which is a brand new, super technological, expensive building according to our source, it was built thanks to the money from the that was originally intended to be used for the idical project.
All right, stick with us, Thomas. When we come back, we'll look at how ten years on, Congo still hasn't managed to set up an ID system.
We'll be right back. So welcome back.
Thomas Statiez is still with us, and we're talking about his deep dive investigation into Congo's failed attempts to develop a national ID system. Thomas, thanks so much for sticking with us through this pod. So there still isn't an ID system, which you go into great detail about in your reporting. Is the government even trying to get there? Where are the plans at this point?
It's interesting because it's the goal.
The fact that the president announced very earlier on after being elected that he will put out an ID system is like a constant in the ten past years of history of Congo. So when Felis Tshikeedi, the current president of years, he was elected after very contestic election in twenty nineteen, he promised very early on that he will have an ID system like set up and so on, and that's what happens.
Over the past four years. An attempt to again create this side the cut.
System with the difficulty that we talked about previously in this podcast. The government signed one of the most expensive biometric deal in the history of Africa with the French Bender and Malian partner for one point two billion dollars and the contract again is suspected to be of a price. The Finance WATCHDOB of Congo found a lot of irregularities in the whole financing structure, let's say, of the program.
So once again the promises to have this ideical that was made to the Congolist cities and very early on by President Shikedi is not fulfilled and we likely not be fulfilled in the next month. And what we can fear is because there were some idicals that were produced and given to a couple of Congolist VIPs, that this idical will become like an object of collection of very
wealthy Congolist people. Because at the time, as far as i'm our sources go, we know there's roughly one thousand idical that were produced over this one point two billion dollar contract.
Wow Tomas, when you went there, I mean, what is the reaction on the ground, especially you outline that some of the funds you founded the report were ciphoned to this new mall.
What do is citizens say there?
I would say, any situation is not black and white, right, there is a sense that this pattern of like misuse of money is like an ongoing situation and never ending situation in congost But I would say that people are very tired also of like this corruption scheme, but also tired of something else, tired of the whole framing of
let's say corruption as an African problem. Corruption in a sense is also a problem of some of those companies that are coming and are participating in those essentially scheme.
This is a two way stuff.
It's not only and solely an African government problem. There's another investigation at least in France for instance, ongoing on another vendor part of a very big group for corruption allegation in Africa. So hopefully, like those the investigations, we instead the records straight, proving that it's not only an African problem, but also like due diligence and a good practices that those company needs to have when they're working in large government tendering process.
And as you mentioned, Congolese people are still waiting as this procect carries on. Tomas, thank you so much for joining us. It's a really fascinating report, really well done by you and the team, and we want to make sure everybody knows that you can read his investigation on Bloomberg right now and we are going to put a link.
In the show notes. Thank you so much to us.
Thank you, Jennifer.
And as Tamas noted, ID systems in much of the world are considered a basic right as citizens.
Without it, as the World Bank says, people.
Can be left feeling like foreigners in their own country. As we approach the UN's twenty thirty Sustainable Development Goal target.
We'll watch to see what progress is actually.
Being made in granting people the ability to obtain a legal identity and how that then affects their countries and their public officials. This program was produced by Adrian Bradley. Don't forget to follow and review this podcast wherever you usually get your podcasts. I'm Jennifer Zabasaja. Thanks as always for listening