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“Every cloud has a silver lining”. The expression has been used by Jeanine, Alain and Henry, the three employees of the town hall in Beni who are satisfied with the improvement of their working conditions since the construction of the new building financed by MONUSCO.
Nearly two years after the inauguration of the new town hall, they still seem to have lost their minds.
“The fire in the town hall was a necessary evil” to understand what Jeanine is referring to, it was necessary to take a step back.
At 8 a.m. on November 25, 2019, Henry Kakule, Chief of State Protocol at Beni Town Hall, saw a dozen angry people running towards the building, protesting a massacre that took place the day before in the Masiana district, in which eight people were killed murdered. killed.
Henry Kakule just had time to inform the mayor and police officers in town before taking shelter. The intervention of the law enforcement police had no effect. Protesters set fire to the city hall building, which went up in smoke.
“I suddenly felt ill. I was traumatized,” Mr. Kakule said.
On the other side of town, Jeanine Mbokani listened to the radio as she did every morning before going to work. It took her a while to realize that the information being broadcast concerned her in the first place. “I couldn’t believe it,” she recalls. Since 2009 she has been working for the town hall, at ‘Okapi Phonie’, the service responsible for sending official messages to and from the governor’s office in Goma.
Alain Kakule says he learned the terrible news from the social network WhatsApp. A video was shared in a group he’s a member of. “I couldn’t believe it. I immediately thought of the official documents that we would have lost,” says this employee of the editors of the town hall of Beni. He knew what he was talking about. It is his team that checks all official emails from the mayor sets up.
“The Day and the Night”
After the emotion created by the fire at Beni’s town hall, the mayor urged employees to gather themselves and get back to work. But where? The mayor’s official residence was converted into an office.
“It was very uncomfortable. We had ten departments at the town hall. The house had three bedrooms. Three services were grouped in each of the rooms. It was very complicated,” says Henry Kakule, who was nicknamed “Coach” at City Hall because of his seniority.
After these sad events, it was with great joy that he heard a few months later the start of the construction of a new town hall, financed by MONUSCO.
“I was the happiest man. I had seen the fire at City Hall with my own eyes. And I saw the governor lay the first stone,” he said emotionally.
The day of the inauguration of the new building was a holiday: “We were eager to take possession of our new office. The day MONUSCO officially handed over the building to us was a big celebration. The people were very happy. And I remember how everyone tried to choose their own office, while the plan already provided for the division by number of departments and according to the organizational chart,” says Alain Kakule.
Jeanine Mbokani’s office was located on the first floor of the new building; she worked in the unit dealing with the transfer of official messages to and from the governor’s office in Goma. She says that since she moved, she arrived at work a little earlier than usual. Most of all, she was delighted to work in the best conditions and in a pleasant environment.
“We feel comfortable in our new office. We have furniture. We can work quietly. I can say today, those who burned down the town hall, they have done a necessary evil,” she said.
Henry Kakule confirms that the burned down old building was no longer suitable at all. Built in 1944, it was dilapidated.
“As a member of the state protocol, I had no office, I received visitors in the entrance hall. We couldn’t talk about confidential matters because everyone could listen,” he said, before explaining, “comparing the new and the old building, it’s like night and day.”
A better working environment
If there is one characteristic that Alain Kakule would like to use to describe the new building, besides the comfort it offers, it is the confidentiality when handling files.
“All users testify to it,” he said. With this new building, the performance of the staff will be better off. There are things that require some confidentiality. Here they are treated without fear. At the administrative secretariat, where we work, there are sometimes e-mails that have to be answered orally. We can now invite the customers and talk to them in good conditions without fear of being overheard in the neighboring office. This was not guaranteed in the old building. Some offices were simply separated by shelves.
For Henry Kakule, there is no doubt that a better working environment has improved employee performance.
He also thinks that city residents have a different view of municipal officials and their work.
“When people mow this building, they really feel like they are in a state office. They are reassured. For example, when you walk into our accountant’s office, there are computers. The taxpayer who has to pay taxes has no doubts that he is in the right place,” argues the head of state protocol at the town hall.
If Henry, Jeanine and Alain still had painful memories of the fire in the old building of the town hall of Beni, they assure that this feeling was quickly wiped out by the satisfactory working conditions offered by the new building.
On September 22, 2021, at the inauguration of the new building, the governor of North Kivu, Lieutenant General Constant Ndima, hailed what he called “another tool for stabilization” in a province still ravaged by violence and where the residents demand a stronger presence from the state and its services.
MONUSCO’s action in favor of Beni Town Hall falls within the framework of its mandate to support the stabilization and strengthening of state institutions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Mission de l’Organisation des Nations unions and République démocratique du Congo (MONUSCO).
This press release is issued by APO. The content is not checked by the African Business editors and none of the content has been checked or validated by our editors, proofreaders or fact-checkers. The publisher is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
