Trade Minister

Today's New York Times has a lengthy article on the Congo. Six months after holding elections, little has changed in the government. To be truthful, expecting miracles after forty plus years of fighting and civil war is a little unrealistic. Then this newspaper publishes fantasies all the time.

Here is one interesting or amusing tidbit.

In early March, when it came time to form the first truly democratic government in the country’s history, a political party connected to President Joseph Kabila submitted the name André Kasongo Ilunga for trade minister. The problem, government officials later acknowledged, was that there was no such man.

Naturally, when the government appointed Mr. Ilunga to the cabinet, he did not show up. The president’s advisers soon discovered that the name had been submitted as a ruse to ensure that another politician got the post.

“It was very embarrassing for all of us,” said Kikaya bin Karubi, a member of Parliament and a confidant of President Kabila.

LOL, maybe they could have submitted my name but I'd decline the job. Maybe the election just changed the faces of those who rule the Congo. As my wife(Who was in a 3rd world country) so often says, 'Same dog, different collar.'

Linked to-Bullwinkle, Right Wing Nation, StikNstein,