By Jerry Nguwa

Nairobi July 26 2009

Once a powerful developing country in Africa , the Democratic Republic of Congo is now the shadow of itself. Nothing is working towards development. The infrastructural situation of the country is currently worst than during colonial times.

Congolese used to fly with local airlines directly from Kinshasa to European capitals. National airlines used to be the pride of Africa . Ironically, today no airline registered in the country is allowed to fly to Europe . Only two airlines are allowed in South Africa and one in Zimbabwe .

Described as the den of flying caskets in the world, the DRC is the country with the highest number of Airlines not allowed within the European Union. A task taken by the civil aviation authorities of E.U member states.

Out of the 200 Airlines from 17 countries banned to enter the E.U airspace, the DRC leads the pack with 60 airlines followed by Kazakhstan . The totality of the list is comprised of Africa and Asia .

Out of its 60 operating airlines, only 7 have the ICAO airline designation number. The DRC is not alone in Africa . It's followed by Angola with 18 airlines. Rwanda and Sudan close the list with a single airline each.

This revelation let no doubt to the reason why most plane crashes occur in the DRC. Most the airlines use military aeroplanes used during World War II. Even the UN mission in the country has joined the list in the usage of those flying caskets.

The issuance of the licences is another anarchical issue. Every individual with a comfortable political seats can be contacted by some business people to influence the issuance of a licence.

Another very important issue is crew flying the “caskets”. During one of our trips within the DRC, we were flown by drunken ex combatants from Eastern Europe . They are actually the majority of the Congolese flying corps. Their preferred because of their experience with the said aeroplanes and cheap man power.

Efforts to get the government spokesman were fruitless. He declined to talk to us citing bias reporting unfavourable to the government one of his aides told us.