At the foreign ministry, junior officials who had not been paid were selling passports on the street. The civil service, which employs half a million people, had no pencils or paper. The National Bank, with a staff of 3,300, had a garage and a carpentry workshop, but not a single computer. Now the ministries are clean and freshly painted. The lifts are gradually starting to work again and staff arrive on time.
Foreigners arriving at the capital's airport think they have landed in the wrong place.
The hordes of conmen and porters who used to grab documents and luggage have gone, kept away by the soldiers. Formalities are speedy, politeness is the norm. The streets are still full of enormous holes like bomb craters, but the verges have been weeded and carefully planted with vegetables and there are flowerbeds at the crossroads. Leaders in every field are making it clear that they want to restore order and eventually rebuild the state, which, by the end of Mobutu's rule, had become no more than an asset to be plundered. The health minister, Dr Jean-Baptiste Sondji, is launching a polio vaccination campaign.