Chartered Accountants in the Congo
Author:
Felim McMahon
Anyone out there who is interested in doing a year of ‘aid work’ abroad but thinks that they don’t have the medical or emergency background necessary to make a contribution overseas should think again.
Organisations like GOAL, which was the nominated charity for this year’s Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI) Annual Dinner, are constantly looking for all kinds of professionals, including finance experts, to volunteer abroad.
Niamh Murnaghan, FCA, is GOAL’s country director in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is tentatively recovering from a thirty-year kleptocracy and a four-year war that claimed more than 3 million lives.
In 1993, however, she was working in the world of leasing and banking, in Dublin. Like millions of people, the world over, Niamh was deeply moved by the images of the 1984/ 85 Ethiopian famine.
“I think that everybody has a reason for coming overseas. My initial feeling about coming away was in response to the Ethiopian famine, the images of which, I think, will stay with me forever.
“I was shocked and horrified that so many people could be starving and dying in … a rich world - but I think that the world can continue to shock and horrify us and there are plenty of instances, every year, of ignorance or unwillingness to face up to problems in particular areas.”
Niger, she says, is a case in point.
Almost a decade after the Ethiopian famine, Niamh joined the UN Volunteers in Nepal. At the time of the Ethiopian famine, she explains,
“I was halfway through a law degree and could quite comfortably say ‘I’d go overseas but nobody wants a half-trained lawyer’ and then, afterwards, when I was an accountant, it was the same thing; ‘Oh nobody wants an accountant’, and then, one day, I opened the newspaper and there they were - looking for finance specialists.”
“It was the time to put my money where my mouth was and it was a decision that was taken in a split second and it’s not one I regret,” she said.
“The move to Nepal”, she added, “changed my career path, my priorities…and my interests.”
Two years with Oxfam in Afghanistan ensued (in 1996/97) before a return to Europe, where Niamh did a Masters’ degree in agriculture, environment & development.
“I spent some time writing a book with one of the professors and eventually decided that it was time to go back overseas and here I am, having applied for a job [with GOAL] in Afghanistan, in the Congo!”
Like all GOALies, Niamh works hard but seems to get a genuine kick out of her job, which translates itself into great energy.
“We’ve got a great team”, she said, “I would say that the attribute everybody shares is a commitment to their work. They are here because they are really interested in making a difference and making a difference here in Congo.”
“Most of us”, she adds, laughing, “enjoy our work most of the time! There’s certainly a great team atmosphere.”
“Goal prefers to have a Chartered Accountant in every country programme to oversee the financial function. Many of the accountants who work with GOAL in this capacity go on to work with GOAL or other agencies in other areas. You’ll find Chartered Accountants in all walks of life - very often not using their accountancy qualification directly, and development is no different.”
Niamh herself trained with KMPG between 1986 and 1990 and subsequently worked for the Treasury Section of Woodchester Investments PLC for four years.
One of the newest members of that team is also a Chartered Accountant.
Louise McGrath ,(27), ACA, who joined the organisation as finance officer in June, says working with GOAL in Congo has provided a personally rewarding way of balancing the books - and of satisfying her wanderlust.
A keen traveller, Louise made the most of her college years at Dublin City University to travel. Graduating from DCU with a degree in Accounting and Finance, in 1998, she qualified as a chartered accountant with Grant Thornton before returning to college.
Two years ago, she graduated with a Masters in Peace and Development from the University of Limerick (UL).
A stint in South Korea teaching English preceded Louise’s appointment with GOAL.
Now, she is responsible for the financial control of projects totalling €3m in two remote areas of the country, working with a team of three Congolese.
“I love this work. It’s tough. The hours are long and the deadlines are many but you see what you’re working for when you go to these communities”, said Louise.
“At home, you could be putting in long hours to get money or to make rich people richer. The end goal for me here is more worthwhile. It makes me happier.”
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), GOAL has been working since 2002 to help restore a population that should be the luckiest in Africa, but are, instead, among her poorest and most traumatised people.
“I’m fortunate”, she said, “I’ve never had to go without. Other people in the world have constant struggles and the fact that I’m working in Congo is evening up the balance.”
“The Congolese are very capable, intelligent and resourceful but they need a hand up”, said Louise, “I want to be a part of that effort.”
GOAL arrived in the eastern city of Goma for the second time in 2002, after a volcanic eruption devastated a city that had already suffered four years of war.
In 1995, GOAL workers had administered aid in the refugee camps of Goma after almost one million Hutus fled Rwanda, just a few kilometres away, after the genocide of one million of their Tutsi compatriots.
The organisation stayed on in Goma from 2002, to help rehabilitate Congo’s shattered health and community infrastructure, taking the lead in two remote areas of the country.
Goma today is GOAL’s HQ in Congo and the organisation’s ‘R&R station’, a place where GOALies working ‘in the field’ come to relax.
The town, which is a hub of trade, NGO, UN and military activity, is a cross between a post apocalyptic scenario and a lakeside resort, bisected by a lava flow that has cut even the runway of the city’s airport in half.
“Goma looks really barron in the parts where the lava flowed over, but its really beautiful in other parts”, said Louise, “but the lake is stunning and you have to pinch yourself and remind yourself that you’re in the middle of Africa.”
“You’re surrounded by blue fresh water, blue skies, eagles, exotic flowers, lizards and all the rest and then, two minutes up the road, it’s desolation.”
The ‘DRC’ or Democratic Republic of Congo should be Africa’s richest nation. Although sparsely populated, with 60 million people spread across an area the size of Western Europe, the DRC is rich in gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and many other minerals, while the country’s borders enclose virtually all of Africa’s tropical rainforest.
The mighty river Congo, meanwhile, is second only to the Amazon in terms of volume, providing the DRC with 60% of Africa’s (and 13% of the world’s) hydroelectric potential.
In fact, the DRC has the potential to produce 150,000 megawatts of power per annum, which is approximately three times Africa’s present consumption - a statistic that is all the more startling when you consider that only 7% of the country’s population currently has access to electricity.
Despite its latent wealth, the DRC is further than ever from fulfilling its potential, while its riches have fuelled six years of fighting involving seven nations, and countless militia, in what has been described as Africa’s World War One.
This conflict started with the demise of the Western-backed dictator Mobutu, who presided for thirty years over one of Africa’s most corrupt régimes - impoverishing what was then Zaïre to the point of collapse.
Following the Rwandan genocide, the arrival of more than one million Hutu refugees into Congo destabilized the country even further.
Rebel leader Laurent Kabila was installed as president of a transitional government in 1996, after a short war supported by Rwanda and Uganda, who sent invading armies back into the DRC in 1998, after relations with Kabila soured.
That war continued until 2002, claiming an estimated 3.3 million casualties from bullets, disease and starvation - but making very few column inches in the press.
True to Congo’s rapacious history, a select group of businessmen, generals and warlords have used political instability as an excuse to strip Congo of its wealth since the war began, while their armies and proxies have engaged in mass murder, rape and robbery of the country’s civilian population.
With elections scheduled for 2006, parts of the country are still in turmoil.
Rwanda’s Tutsi government, in particular, has been accused of ongoing interference in the DRC’s ‘Wild East’, where GOAL is based, and where the Hutu perpetrators of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide are still hiding in the woods, with an army of 8,000, accused of perpetrating atrocities against civilians.
The monthly death toll from preventable disease and starvation in the DRC is still around 31,000, meanwhile, adding up to "a Tsunami every nine months", according to the UN’s head of relief, Jan Egeland, who has lamented what he calls the world’s ‘continuing disinterest’ in the ‘worlds worst humanitarian crisis’.
GOAL’s field operations take place in the mineral-rich Katanga province, where Irish UN troops served in the 1960’s, and in the lush jungle of South Kivu.
On the ground, GOAL has assumed the role of county council, health board and the department of agriculture.
Tarmac is non-existent in these zones, there is no electricity, and supplies must be flown into regional airstrips in ramshackle aircraft, before they are transported along a sparse network of dirt roads, across rivers and on foot to health clinics, hospitals and other GOAL-assisted projects.
Life in the field is rough but rewarding and GOALies at work in HQ often miss it.
On a trip to GOAL’s operations in Manono, in the southern Savannah-lands of Katanga, Niamh was delighted, once more, to be at the coal-face of NGO work.
A two-hour jaunt down a dusty, rutted dirt track across bridges rehabilitated by GOAL led us to a remote clinic, on the edge of a territory where the Congolese army had gathered, seemingly poised to attack one an armed group that has not yet been co-opted to the peace process. All along the road, we met people who have fled their homes due to the ongoing insecurity; the lootings, the burning of entire villages and rapes.
We hear of a large group of internally displaced people in a remote village ten miles away, which we reach by car, foot and across the river by dugout canoe.
When we get there, we meet a group of people who have marginally less than the people of village that is hosting them, whose possessions are even fewer, whose health is even poorer, including sick children and elderly people who would be at retirement age in Ireland.
Their needs are quickly assessed because we must either return to base by nightfall or set up camp at sundown.
GOAL does not allow its vehicles to travel the roads here after dark.
Of course, the situation in Congo is not all doom and gloom. In fact, most GOALies are energised as a result of their experiences abroad.
“I think that the media often does places like Congo a disservice and places like Northern Ireland too, in the past, where it’s only ever the awful stories that come out.
“It’s the fighting, the massacres, the hardship and what doesn’t come across is that people still live; they still enjoy life, they get married, they have children, they have lives and it’s important to balance a view of countries like Congo.
“People in Congo are very resilient. They are picking up the remains of their lives and trying to move forward. Trying to make sure that their children have an education and I think that is a big plus.”
Louise has been similarly impressed: “Congolese people have shown great resilience in the face of adversity. It says a lot about them as individuals and the capacity we have, as human beings, to just pick ourselves up and keep going…it’s been a very positive experience.
“I think that volunteering abroad is an amazing opportunity to go away and to live in a different culture for more than just a two-week holiday”, according to Niamh.
“We get a lot from being here…There’s sometimes a feeling at home that you’re just out ‘doing good’, whereas really it’s a job, albeit a deeply satisfying one.
“There’s a huge dividend that comes from being able to make friends with people from completely different countries with different outlooks on life and, you know, it’s fun.”
Félim McMahon is a journalist working with GOAL