Congo's new prime minister has delayed choosing a cabinet because transitional administration officials have not yet moved out of his offices, a spokesman said on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Antoine Gizenga, an 81-year-old opposition veteran, was named prime minister last week by elected President Joseph Kabila and had been due to start meeting potential ministers on Tuesday. "The problem is that the locations are currently being occupied," Gizenga spokesman Godefroid Mayobo said. "How is the prime minister supposed to work? He cannot receive people in a private residence," he said. "We cannot hold consultations in such a situation." Mayobo said staff and advisors to the four vice-presidents in a now defunct interim government were still occupying offices designated for the premier and his team. A three-year transition period led by an interim power-sharing government after a 1998-2003 civil war officially ended with parliamentary polls in July and an October presidential runoff vote won by the incumbent Kabila, who became Congo's first democratically elected leader in over 40 years. The elections were meant to draw a line under a conflict which left an estimated 4 million people dead across the vast, mineral-rich country, mostly from starvation and disease. Fidel Babala, a top aide to former vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba -- who lost to Kabila in the presidential run-off -- put the dispute down to a misunderstanding. "There's no conflict," Babala told Reuters. "We were just waiting for them to arrive. They are state offices and we will leave them to the state. But we cannot leave them unguarded." Mayobo said Gizenga's advisors would visit the offices, including the prime minister's official residence, later on Tuesday to try to resolve the problem.
