L'économie informelle

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1. Problems

Decade 80 marks the beginning of the economic crisis and the setting of the African continent (in prey with difficulties without equivalents) under administration of the International Monetary International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Implicit in the year, the abstract sector became extensive at the point to compete with, with its advantage, the formal sector. The divisibility of the products, and their evolutionary request because of the weakness purchasing power to them, is a factor which reinforces the couple purchasing salesman/. This relation beyond its economic function, supports a user-friendliness absent in the formal sector or the prices do not give place to negotiations. The unceasingly increasing fall of the purchasing power of the employees exerting in the modern sector encourages the households to seek complementary incomes in the abstract sector to join the two ends of the month. Adoption and the implementation of the policies of structural adjustment with its perverse effects (reduction of the wages, reduction in manpower of the Public office, privatization of the government enterprises...) contributed to the devalorization of the public sector and thus to the swelling of the number of agents operating in the abstract sector. In short, there is an unfolding of the formal sector in abstract sector where each activity called «regulates some» has a counterpart. All occurs as if the saving in these countries posts two faces with the image of the Janus god. The abstract one and the formal one is thus closely dependant, would be this only by the currency of which they make a common use ^(1(*)).

If the practice of the abstract economy gets easy profits, the extent of the consequences is important on the company. Tax avoidance and the moonlighting largely penalize the individuals who respect the laws and must support an additional tax burden. The moonlighters do not profit from any social protection, the consumers of any guarantee. The companies have to face an unfair competition prejudicial with employment, on behalf of those which do not respect the tax and social general obligations ^(2(*)).

The actors of the abstract economy are discriminated until in the economic language: the investment terms and investors in general cover only the operators of the economy known as modern, and of course the investments external.

In Kinshasa, the 3/4 of the economic activities are abstract. Undoubtedly, the statistics are random since, by its nature, this sector escapes any control ^(3(*)). It would seem that nearly 90% of the working population town of Kisangani (3rd city of Congo) occupy of abstract employment... ^(4(*)). The importance of the abstract sector especially in the form of the small trade is not to show in Democratic Republic of Congo.

Indeed, of the politician to the man in the street, of the intellectual to the illiterate, the State to the individual, of the townsman to the peasant, everyone is either an operator, or recipient of the goods and services provided by this sector. The abstract one acts thus at the same time like valve of safety and shock absorber of the social shocks ^(5(*)).

This sector of small trades and services is made up mainly of the hairdressers, shoe-makers, quados, washers of vehicles, chargers of cars (Dockers), commercial peddlers, tailors, fitters, salesmen of the products tanker, shoeshiner, tradesman, traditional medical product sellers, push-pushers, etc

It is thus clear that for the moment, the abstract sector became a source of regulation for the employment appropriatenesses as well for the new researchers of employment as for the workers recycled or reconverted in Africa. One thus includes/understands that the abstract economy rests on a social compromise, a dumb consensus around the tolerance of the non-observance of the law ^(6(*)).

Paraphrasing the professor Nyabirungu mwene Songa, it is necessary to speak about the criminalisation of the Congolese economy which means that this one does not function any more according to standards' contained in our laws, and that it is the violation of these laws which became the regulating standard of the production, circulation, the exchange, the distribution and the consumption of the richnesses ^(7(*)).

Mr Bosekota W' Atshia increases : « For several years, the economic activity as a R.D.C has been in continuous regression. It is of a very deep structural crisis and not about a simple phenomenon of the economic situation » ^(8(*)).

By what precedes, we note that the major part of the activities of the sector known as abstract concern the ordinance-law n° 90-046 of August 08 1990 which repealed the ordinance-law n° 79-021 of bearing 2 February 1979 regulation of the small trade. Then, how to explain the frequent distorsions with the law as well as the acts posed apart from any regulation? The Congolese State it failed in the doctrines of Colbertisme ^(9(*))? The aforesaid regulation is it conforms to the socio-economic evolution of the country on the one hand ? In addition, which are the reasons which push the actors of small activities not to be made record with close to the tax services and finally we will see which between the reform of the above-mentioned ordinance-law as well as the formalization of the abstract economy can contribute best to the blooming of Small and Medium-sized companies ?

As assumption, one could affirm that one of the fundamental obstacles that meets the institutional action to frame the abstract activity would find its base in a fight structural speed between an official economy and an abstract economy, uncontrolled and out the law.

In the dialectical one of the right writes considered intangible and of the common law, heterogeneous and malleable, the function of the national State is not clearer, as well it is true as its action remains heavily mortgaged by « Juridicity » of a normative arsenal and against nature which develops the administrative imitation unsuited to the urban sociological context and with the phenomenon of the abstract economy.

Opiner can also that the reform of the juridico-institutional framework generally ignores the abstract activities which are not solum confused with capitalism, but also constrained to conform to their logic. The idea of a formalization of the abstract economy would be possible.

2. Delimitation of the subject

The abstract economy covers a long string with illegal activities to various degrees. We have, on the one hand, the licit producing activities not declared i.e. not recorded by the government (personal production, domestic industry, etc) and, on the other hand, the whole of the producing illicit activities of good or services. Thus, fraud and tax avoidance, in all or partly, illegal work,... concern the first category. Traffics of narcotics, weapons, procuring..., of the second ^(10(*)).

The present study will be limited to the analysis in Congolese right of the activities of the first category and not to those of the second which from their nature illegal and are prohibited.

We will proceed by a diachronic study of the phenomenon abstract economy of the period going from 1990 to our days. Because, paraphrasing Harold Lubel ^(11(*)), contrary to the Seventies where the actions of the authorities which aimed the abstract sector directly were generally hostile, of the type of the police harassing whose the merchants of streets and the craftsmen of the center of the cities are victims. These last years, this harassing decreased in many cases as the contribution of the abstract sector to the production had been suddenly recognized.

Nevertheless the attitude of the authorities remains still hostile : maintaining because of its productivity, they primarily regard the abstract sector as a potential source of increase in the its actor and tax collection like defrauders (even if, actually, it is already of important taxpayers for municipal finances by the commercial licenses and the royalty).

3. Interest of the study

As of aucuns know it, the vertiginous progression of the activities of the abstract sector is not without annoying consequences on the Congolese economy. The present study will have, on the one hand, the merit to place at the disposal of any eager intellectual of cogiter on the abstract economy a judicious working tool (theoretical interest). In addition, this work will allow the legislator and the decision makers policy to become aware of the insufficiencies whose fact shows the legislation into force at the same time decayed, obsolete, etc (how to explain for example that the majority of citizens exert illegally, to sky open and in all impunity their activities to the detriment of the Treasury ?) (practical interest). This reflection will enable us to appreciate light the lata in order to make to the legislator effective proposals for a regulation of light ferenda.

4. Working methods

Any scientific work requires the use of a methodological step which can make it possible to the researcher to collect, to interpret and analyze the data which it will have collected.

Within the framework of the present report, we estimated that our objective could be achieved only following the use of the methods exegetic and sociological.

The first enabled us to expose and analyze the legislation on the small trade, on the one hand and, on the other hand, to see up to what point this regulation contributes to the blossoming of the activities concerned with the abstract economy.

On a purely complementary basis, the recourse to a method of social sciences was dictated by an analysis that we want meticulous in comparison with the complexity and delicacy which characterize the life in company.

Considering the configuration of our topic of investigation, arsenal of the methods in social sciences, we retained to exploit the applicants of the dialectical one.

As the specialists note it on the matter, «  the dialectical one is initially associated the concept of totality, by denying insulation between the sets and their parts and by stressing that social reality is made of the whole of the interactions between its various elements. It tends then and finally to privilege the research of contradictions within this reality, while highlighting, behind the apparent unit of reality, tried them, the oppositions, the conflicts, the fights, the opposites and the contradictory ones » ^(12(*)).

In the light of what precedes, our reading of « the abstract economy and need for one reform regulation of the small trade in Congolese right » account will thus hold, of the relationship between the commercial activity and the general situation of the country without forgetting the influence of the variables likely to involve oppositions, the contradictory ones, conflicts which would be able to justify the deviating behavior of certain social actors with respect to the laws enacted as regards small trade.

An efficient use of the aforesaid methods obliges us to make recourse to certain techniques likely to support us the harvest of the data necessary to the drafting of this work.

Thus, we made recourse to the documentary technique and that of interview. The first, in its primarily written form, us made it possible to have accesses to scientific works having milked on our subject of memory. The second enabled us to obtain on behalf of sufficiently well informed people of information necessary to the drafting of this work ^(13(*)).

5. Subdivision of work

Put aside the present introduction as well as the conclusion taken again in fine of this work, our essay comprises three chapters which are arranged in the following way :

First draft of the abuse resulting from the exercise of the abstract economy by describing this economy juridically, by presenting these characteristics, these categories of activities, their contribution like their consequences on the level of the economy.

Lastly, the second chapter as for him presents the possibilities of one reforms ordinance-law of August 08, 1990 on the small trade, but it insists much more on the interest of the formalization of the abstract economy for purposes of promotion of Small and Medium-sized companies.

* ⁽¹The abstract sector  : an exit point for Africa, in http://myweb.worldnet.net/~matheuy/ecform.html

* ⁽²⁾ Underground Economy (management Report DGCCRF 1999) in

http://www.finances.gouv.fr/DGCCRF/activites/1999/eco_sout.htm, 07-05-2002.

* ⁽³⁾ World Conference of Work-INFORMATION., WOMEN: CHICKS OF ABSTRACT, in http://www.cmt-wcl.org/fr/pubs/cmtinfo9902.html

* ⁽⁴⁾ SUMATA Claude, parallel economy of R.D.C., ED. Harmattan, Paris, 2001, p..204.

* ⁵ SAVANNA I, abstract it is the life, in http://www.africaonline.co.ci/AfricaOnline/infos/fratmat/9697eco2.html

* ⁽⁶⁾ CISSE Mr., International Confederation of the Free Trade unions (CISL) Needs and Request for the Abstract Sector and the Small Companies as regards professional competences and knowing  : Prospect in a developing country in Africa Geneva, September 10-13, 2001.

* ⁽⁷⁾ NYABIRUNGU Mr. SONGA, the criminalisation of the Zairean economy, ED. , Kinshasa, 1996, p. 8.

* ⁽⁸⁾ BOSEKOTA W' ATSHIA, To rebuild Democratic Congo  : Good Official Governorship and Key Role of SME  !, ED. University presses «  BEAUTIFUL CAMPUS  », Volume I, p. 17.

* ⁽⁹⁾ Colbertisme is doctrines according to which the public authority must impel the economy, to direct it and control it. To see with this subject Francoise Dekeuwer-Défossez, Commercial law  : Commercial activities, commercial, goodwill, competes with, consumption, 2nd edition, Montchrestien, 1992, p.7.

* ⁽¹⁰⁾ In the same way, lira underground Economy (management Report DGCCRF 1999), in http://www.finances.gouv.fr/ DGCCRF/activities/1999/eco_sout.htm

* ⁽¹¹⁾ HAROLD LUBELL, the abstract sector in the Eighties and Nineties, OECD, Paris, 1991.

* ⁽¹²⁾ To read KUYUNSA B.G and SHOMBA K.S., Initiation with the methods of research in sciences Social, PUZ, Kinshasa, 1995, p.123 and following.

* ⁽¹³⁾ To read SHOMBA KINYAMBA, Methodology of scientific research, PUK, 2002, Kinshasa, p. 46 and following.