Governor of Kinshasa campaigns against rowdy nights and "dirt"

The long, noisy nights of street life in Kinshasa should be curtailed by the unruly new capital of the DRC governor, as part of a campaign across the city against "dirt".

In less than a month, bars that overflow the city 's highways will no longer be allowed to serve guests with beer and meat kebabs until 18:00. Five hours later, the premises must close, Governor Gentiny Ngobila announced last Thursday.

Guests on terraces crowded with popular neighborhoods such as Huilerie, Matonge and Bandal will benefit from an extension until midnight on weekends and holidays, after the regulation comes into effect on August 1st.

Popular rumba music can still explode, but drink sales must always stop an hour before the closing time, according to authorities who believe that a "live and let live" attitude has gone too far in the third metropolis of Africa.

The attempt to reduce noise and disordered behavior is only one aspect of Ngopola's "Kin Bopeto" – "Clean Kinshasa" – operation, which also targets alleged prostitutes and delinquents.

"Sometimes you find someone drinking a beer at 10 am In what state will they be before noon?" protested the provincial Minister of the Environment, Didier Tenge Litho.

He exhumed "the ordinance-law of May 31, 1975 regulating the hours of opening and closing places serving (alcoholic) drinks".

Speaking on several radio stations to get the message across, Tenge Litho said the Kin Bopeto campaign was aimed at provoking a "change of perspective and behavior" aimed at "rejecting dirt".

Nobody knows for sure how many people live in the sprawling capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There has been no census since 1984, but a broad consensus estimate puts the population at 10 million.

& # 39; Cleaning brigades & # 39;

The city inherited from Belgian colonial rule was often called "Kin-la-belle", but for many it has now become "Kin-the-trash" (Kin-la-poubelle) – where d & # 39; Countless plastic bags strew along the clay "avenues" and obstruct water courses.

The new governor announced resources to achieve visible results of the Kin Bopeto initiative within six months. Each of the 24 administrative departments of Kinshasa will receive financial badistance, while "cleaning brigades" of at least 40 officers will serve each district.

The campaign also targets behaviors that are considered immoral and socially unacceptable, but the authorities have turned to traditional scapegoats. Street children "shegue" and "kuluna" and juvenile offenders are held responsible for insecurity, while the alleged "adolescent prostitutes" ujana "are gathered together.

The so-called "ulana" are often the target of repression for supposedly dressed to attract men to bars and nightclubs. By JOHN WESSELS (AFP)

Innocent girls are sometimes – and often often – accused of being cowardly women simply because they do not wear a bra.

City officials even plan to enforce the distance between informal traders who congregate along busy main roads. These people must stay at least one meter away from the road to prevent anyone from getting sick from the dirt.

It remains to be seen what will become Kinshasa six months after the beginning of the governor's plan. One thing is already certain. This will affect the majority of the working population who live in precarious informal jobs, including small businesses along the roads and in the beer service.