5 Makuta

The 5 Makuta was issued under Mobutu Sese Seko's authenticité campaign, a cultural nationalist program that systematically replaced colonial-era names and symbols — the country itself had been renamed Zaïre from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1971. The makuta (singular: likuta) denomination was introduced as part of this same rebranding, replacing the franc congolais in 1967.

By 1977, Zaïre's copper-mining economy was already under severe strain from falling global cobalt and copper prices, pressures that would accelerate the currency's eventual collapse in the 1990s.