Most members of the new executive have been drawn from former president Joseph Kabila's Common Front for Congo. DRC will now have a female vice prime minister, minister for foreign affair"},"modified":"2019-08-27T08:32:42","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T08:32:42","slug":"congo-kinshasa-dr-congo-names-new-government-after-7-month-delay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/08\/27\/congo-kinshasa-dr-congo-names-new-government-after-7-month-delay\/","title":{"rendered":"Congo-Kinshasa: DR Congo Names New Government After 7-Month Delay"},"content":{"rendered":" <\/p>\n Most members of the new executive have been drawn from former president Joseph Kabila’s Common Front for Congo. DRC will now have a female vice prime minister, minister for foreign affairs and minister for planning.<\/em><\/p>\n Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) announced a coalition government on Monday, seven months after President Felix Tshisekedi scored a surprise election victory over veteran ruler Joseph Kabila.<\/p>\n Negotiations in the central African nation had dragged on since Tshisekedi’s inauguration in January following DRC’s first peaceful transition of power since the mineral-rich nation gained independence from Belgium in 1960.<\/p>\n “The government is finally here,” Prime Minister Sylvestre Ilunga said before the members of the new government were announced by the presidency’s spokesman.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The executive will have a female vice prime minister, minister for foreign affairs and minister for planning, Ilunga said.<\/p>\n Ebola outbreak<\/strong><\/p>\n The mining portfolio went to former regional mines minister Willy Samsoni. The country’s former director general of taxes Sele Yalaghuli was named finance minister. Ngoy Mukena, a close Kabila ally, was named defense minister.<\/p>\n Born into politics<\/strong><\/p>\n Twenty-three members of DRC’s power-sharing executive were drawn from Tshisekedi’s Direction For Change, and the remaining 42 from former president Joseph Kabila’s Common Front for Congo.<\/p>\n Tshisekedi won the December elections — marred by delays amid an Ebola outbreak and militia violence in many regions — on a platform to ease poverty and roll back corruption that flourished during his predecessor’s reign.<\/p>\n Kabila had been barred by constitutional term limits from standing for another term, leading to DRC’s first transfer of power at the ballot box after his two decades in office.<\/p>\n Tshisekedi, nicknamed ‘Fatshi’, was born into a well-off family in DRC’s capital Kinshasa in 1963. His father was the late Congolese opposition politician Etienne Tshisekedi, a popular figure who served as prime minister for three brief terms in the 1990s.<\/p>\n \n