In 2024, with RCN Justice & Démocratie, CERC set up a social alert system against corruption in the courts of Kinshasa and supported students from four universities against corruption.
Translated from the original French edition.
Citizens able to report corruption in the justice system, and students ready to act against it.
received from RCN Justice & Démocratie and spent in 2024
focal points in the social alert network in Kinshasa
toll-free number posters in the courts of Kalamu, Ndjili and Matete
students from 4 universities at the inter-club meeting (December 2024)
REPLIC aims to strengthen the accountability of justice actors and the power of civil society and citizens – including the most vulnerable and young people – to act, so as to build a plural justice system that has more integrity and respects fundamental rights.
On 1 April 2024, CERC and RCN Justice & Démocratie (RCN J&D) signed a specific partnership agreement to implement the anti-corruption component of the second phase of the Justice Reform Support Programme (PARJ2), funded by the European Union, and of the project Agir pour une justice redevable, plurielle et intègre au Congo (REPLIC), co-funded by the Belgian Directorate-General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid (DGD). These projects contribute to result 14 of axis 4 of the National Justice Reform Policy (2017–2026).
The agreement ran until 31 December 2024. It first covered the social alert and response system; an amendment signed on 12 August 2024 added the youth anti-corruption project incubator: support to university anti-corruption clubs and journalism. RCN J&D provided technical support and validated the tools, the terms of reference and CERC’s monthly narrative and financial reports.
In 2024, CERC set up a social alert system in Kinshasa so that citizens could report corruption in the justice sector, and organised civil society’s response to these alerts.
With technical support from RCN J&D, CERC developed the system’s tools: a guide to the social alert system, a memorandum of understanding with the focal points and an implementation strategy.
The system was run by a network of 9 focal points, appointed by civil society organisations and anti-corruption networks – ACVDP, PONJA PONJA, C4, GREM, COCOLUCO, AFEVOPHA and CERC – to collect and pass on corruption complaints from their communities. On 6 May 2024, RCN J&D handed CERC 9 phones and 8 SIM cards, which CERC distributed to the focal points with their transport and communication allowances.
CERC met the prosecutors and heads of division of the public prosecutor’s offices of Kalamu, Ndjili and Matete to present the social alert system. Mission orders allowed 7 focal points to access the courts. Several judicial authorities authorised the display of the system’s toll-free number in their jurisdictions.
To find resource persons within the justice system, CERC also ran small surveys among litigants and traders near prosecutors’ offices and courts, to identify magistrates known for their integrity.
The message was simple: “Together, let us say no to corruption, by reporting corrupt acts and practices in the justice sector.”
CERC received its first 3 alerts in May 2024. By the end of June, it had received and documented 7, of which 3 could not be followed up because the victims or witnesses withdrew for fear of reprisals. The alerts came from the focal points, public speaking forums, awareness-raising activities and the toll-free number.
CERC responded through advocacy with judicial authorities – notably with ACVDP, in Kalamu and Ndjili, from 8 June 2024 – and by advising and assisting litigants. On 26 July 2024, it supported ACVDP in following a case before the Kalamu high court about a piece of evidence that had disappeared.
Documented cases (the people are not named)
From September to December 2024, CERC supported students from four universities in Kinshasa to set up integrity clubs and act against corruption at university and in the justice system.
Selected by RCN J&D through a call for expressions of interest to raise young people’s awareness of the fight against corruption, CERC ran the Youth Anti-Corruption Project Incubator. Its aim: to help mobilise students as citizens against corruption, particularly at university and in the justice sector.
CERC supported the creation of integrity clubs in four universities: the University of Kinshasa, the Pan-African University, the Reverend Kim University and Bel Campus University. Each club had up to 15 students – as many women as men, 30% of them marginalised or under-represented students – led by a president and a vice-president.
Each club held three meetings, on the project and its partners, the legal and institutional framework against corruption, and the role of students. The students studied the United Nations Convention against Corruption, the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption, the SADC Protocol against Corruption and national legislation, and the institutions in charge of enforcing them.
They identified the legal obstacles to fighting corruption in the DRC: the lack of a special anti-corruption law, of a law on access to information and of a law protecting whistleblowers. Ready to report corruption but afraid of reprisals, they included in their joint roadmap advocacy with the National Assembly for the adoption of a whistleblower protection law.
On 3 December 2024, the inter-club meeting brought together 61 students (18 women and 43 men) from the four universities at the Pan-African University. With an expert recruited by CERC, they diagnosed corrupt practices at university and drew up a joint action plan.
Money paid to pass (“lidabo”); sexual corruption in exchange for grades; forced sale of books as a condition for passing; nepotism in recruiting assistants; undeserved grades; grades deliberately lost; bribes to enter the exam room.
Exams taken by someone else (“merco”); bribed invigilators; gifts to assistants before exams; swapped exam papers (“kotisa-bimisa”); falsified grades; favouritism, tribalism and influence peddling.
To reach a wider audience, CERC worked with the online media Habari RDC, which published articles on the activities – including awareness raising among Bel Campus University students and the creation of a network of students against corruption in Congolese universities – with a focus on the sexual corruption identified by the students.
CERC’s training sessions used modules prepared by anti-corruption expert Paulin Kibendelwa: understanding corruption (definitions and offences under the Congolese Criminal Code), the legal and institutional framework against corruption, and monitoring corruption.
In 2024, CERC received US$19,295 from RCN Justice & Démocratie for the REPLIC – PARJ2 partnership, and spent it on the lines of the agreement of 1 April 2024 as amended on 12 August 2024. Funds were transferred quarterly, on the basis of the quarter’s forecast and of justified expenditure, and CERC accounted for its expenditure through monthly financial reports with the original supporting documents.
| Item | US$ |
|---|---|
| Running costs | 175.00 |
| Office supplies | 55.00 |
| Communication | 60.00 |
| Bank charges | 60.00 |
| Social alert system and response | 14,295.00 |
| Setting up the social alert system in communities | 6,500.00 |
| – communication for the 9 focal points (10 months) | 2,250.00 |
| – transport for the 9 focal points (10 months) | 2,250.00 |
| – supervision per diem | 2,000.00 |
| Civil society response to alerts in Kinshasa | 7,795.00 |
| – transport (advocacy meetings) | 2,500.00 |
| – media (press briefing or advocacy programme) | 750.00 |
| – legal assistance | 3,000.00 |
| – awareness raising | 1,545.00 |
| Youth anti-corruption project incubator | 4,825.00 |
| Journalism | 1,000.00 |
| Support to university anti-corruption clubs | 3,825.00 |
| Total expenditure 2024 | 19,295.00 |
Equivalent to €17,826.13. These figures have not been audited.
CERC thanks RCN Justice & Démocratie for its trust and technical support, the European Union and the Belgian Development Cooperation (DGD), the organisations of the focal point network – ACVDP, PONJA PONJA, C4, GREM, COCOLUCO and AFEVOPHA –, the judicial authorities of Kalamu, Ndjili and Matete, the University of Kinshasa, the Pan-African University, the Reverend Kim University and Bel Campus University, Habari RDC, and the students and citizens who took part in the project.
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