Community Concerns Trigger Swift Response
When refuse piled high across the Liberty Market and adjoining neighbourhoods of Tié-Tié, residents of Pointe-Noire voiced an anxiety that transcended mere inconvenience. Their appeal reached the Directorate-General for Finance and Equipment of the National Police and Gendarmerie, whose chief, Colonel-Major Michel Innocent Peya, answered with military promptitude. In the absence of the private contractors Averda and Albayrak, whose suspension of service had left the country’s two largest cities in disarray, the DGFE deployed its freshly created Sanitation and Environmental Protection Unit, acting on the standing instruction of President Denis Sassou Nguesso to tighten the bond between security forces and the population.
Engineering Corps at the Heart of Urban Hygiene
Well before dawn, mechanical shovels, tipper trucks and compactors bearing the DGFE crest rolled through the city’s congested arteries. The operation, executed by detachments ordinarily tasked with maintaining police infrastructure, demonstrated a logistical fluency rarely attributed to an ostensibly administrative branch. Within hours, Liberty Market’s once-fetid perimeter stood cleansed, traders reclaimed their stalls and passers-by spontaneously donated bottles of water to uniformed engineers in a gesture of civic gratitude. Colonel-Major Peya, speaking on site, stressed that “defence of the homeland also means protection of its living environment,” underscoring the unit’s dual vocation of security and service.
Public Health Safeguarded in Rainy Season
The rainy months traditionally magnify cholera and typhoid risks in Congo’s coastal basin. By eradicating countless informal dumpsites, the DGFE initiative has pre-empted vectors of water-borne disease and reduced the temptation for residents of Ngoyo to resort to hazardous waste burning beneath high-voltage pylons. Such fires, local authorities warn, threaten widespread power outages capable of paralysing industrial production and domestic life alike. Dr. Irène Mabiala, an epidemiologist at Pointe-Noire General Hospital, saluted the campaign as “a decisive barrier against seasonal epidemics, achieved through pragmatic inter-service collaboration.”
Civic Confidence and Presidential Vision
Mayor Charlotte Matondo of Tié-Tié credited the improvement to the President’s modernisation agenda and to the Interior Minister Raymond Zéphyrin Mboulou, adding that “citizens now witness in concrete terms how the State listens and responds.” For Colonel-Major Peya, the clean-up represents only a first stage: subsequent passes will focus on maintaining arterial drainage to safeguard urban mobility and economic resilience. The operation thus embodies the ecological ideal that the Head of State has articulated in public addresses and that Peya, also an author of environmental essays, has echoed in print.
À retenir
The DGFE’s intervention restored hygiene to key commercial zones, curtailed health hazards and fortified trust between civilians and the forces of order. Its rapid execution, made possible by an agile supply chain and multi-skilled technicians, illustrates the State’s capacity to substitute for private operators when the public interest so demands.
Le point juridique/éco
Established by Decree 2025-25 of 21 February 2025, the Sanitation and Environmental Protection Unit enjoys a regulatory mandate extending beyond military premises to any urban area requiring urgent remediation. Legal analysts note that the decree provides the DGFE with a clear framework for temporary occupation of public space, limiting exposure to liability while ensuring continuity of essential services. Economically, the clean-up averts potential losses linked to health crises and power disruptions, safeguarding Pointe-Noire’s role as the country’s foremost export hub.