The obvious starting place for the DRC to move as soon as possible into rapid economic growth, that 10 percent a year that does so much to lift a population from poverty to middle-income status in just a generation, is the mineral wealth.
World metal prices, thanks to the booming Chinese and Indian economies, are moving upwards swiftly. For the first time in 30 years commodity exports can fuel serious economic growth. And it only takes a couple of years for a decent investor backed by the right technical teams to open a mine and bring it into production.
The Belgians exploited the DRC for decades, channeling the huge wealth created by its resources first into the private pockets of the royal family and then into a slightly wider range of Belgian bank accounts.
The hopes of independence were dashed. The Cold War, the near total lack of trained Congolese manpower and secessionist tendencies all put paid to any vast programme of mining development that would include Congolese as real partners and co-beneficiaries.
The Mobuto decades saw the President looting the country with the help of a few cronies, so no serious respectable investor, foreign or local, could make the investments required, even if they wanted. And few did.
Laurent Kabila was faced with war within months of coming to power. As a survival tactic, and in the hope that the sort of people crowding round his offices might include some honest types, he gave concessions. Some took their concession as a licence to loot. Others followed in the footsteps of the worst colonial adventurers, and took a concession simply to hold as "an investment" without actually doing anything while they tried to find a sucker who would buy it and set them up for life.
President Joseph Kabila, the first elected leader of DRC since Patrice Lumumba, wants a serious clean up of the whole mess, thus not only freeing unused assets but also starting to create the sort of environment that is attractive to the real and desired investor.
Those investors, including the ones who won concessions from Laurent Kabila, who are actually mining minerals seem to have little to fear. They will no doubt have to regularize their positions and during this process we hope that new conditions that increase Congolese involvement will be included.
The rest, so far as we are concerned, can lose the lot.
We hope President Kabila will go further and, while his investigators are prowling through the filth, will have his expert economic teams start drawing up the sort of laws and policies that the DRC needs to attract and retain the type of investor it actually desired.
At the same time a good hard look can be taken at the tax and royalty structures, and here the DRC can take a leaf out of Zambia's book. International mining companies, while efficient, have a tendency to find every loophole in every tax code to make their profits emerge in odd places like the Cayman Islands where no tax is charged.
Zambia, being a country that, like the DRC, does not have an army of tax accountants on the State payroll who can compete on level terms with the sort of talent mining companies hire, switched the collection of much of its share of mining development from taxes to royalties.
You can argue for years about tax law, but if a mine produces 1 000 tonnes of cobalt and the royalty is 3 percent, then 30 tonnes belong to the Government. Low taxes, so the cost of avoidance is greater than the cost of paying them, plus reasonable royalties seems to be the best way all round.
Most countries in SADC have external mining companies operating in their countries. Surely someone in the SADC secretariat could ask around discreetly and start drawing up a list, grading them as to how honest they are and how well they co-operate. Countries like the DRC, looking for decent investors, would then know who was worth approaching with an invitation.
Even these companies would have to join a tender process publicly monitored.
