Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-02-Speech-2-248"
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"en.20030902.10.2-248"2
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The article on which this question is based contains a number of inaccuracies that could mislead the reader. On the one hand, legal proceedings are currently under way against European food surplus exporters in relation to a money laundering and diamond trafficking affair. The Belgian magistracy has dispatched an investigating committee to the Democratic Republic of Congo. That investigation is secret and falls within the competence of the Belgian Courts. The Commission therefore has no information on this matter.
On the other hand, the Commission is currently allocating significant resources to the development of local agriculture in the DRC. Under the European Development Fund, projects to boost agriculture and rehabilitate rural roads, along with phytosanitary measures are under way to the tune of EUR 13.2 million. An agricultural support project worth EUR 12 million is awaiting approval.
The food aid supplied by the Commission amounts to nearly EUR 5 million and consists, inter alia, of amounts made available to the NGO, CDI-Bwamanda, to purchase maize from local producers at the Kinshasa market price. This approach enables Congolese farmers to continue producing in a domestic situation, characterised by a patent lack of purchasing power, and therefore to prepare themselves to compete on the national and regional markets when the post-conflict economic upturn begins.
Furthermore, the Commission's intervention, via this NGO, will help avoid a situation where food aid produced outside the country weakens an agricultural sector already hard-hit by the country's political conditions, which are having huge repercussions on production. All this has given rise in Kinshasa to a steep increase in the market price for maize.
It should be noted, however, that since the conclusion of the 'global and inclusive' Pretoria agreement in December 2002, and the official reunification of Congolese territory at the end of June 2003, commercial navigation on the river Congo is returning to normal. This will in all probability bring the market price down."@en1
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