Author: Congo Times

Symbolic roots of National Tree Day From the forested banks of the Alima River, President Denis Sassou Nguesso chose Oyo, his native town, to celebrate in advance the 39th National Tree Day on 2 November. Since a presidential decree of 1984 institutionalised the event for every 6 November, successive editions have sought to turn a ceremonial planting into a civic reflex. This year’s theme—“One tree, one forest, one plantation for a flourishing Congo”—invites each citizen to see personal action as part of a collective ecological tapestry. In the words of a senior forestry adviser present in Oyo, “the seed a…

A strategic turning point for technical education In a political climate that values administrative modernisation, the Republic of Congo has embarked on a major overhaul of its public technical and vocational schools. From 20 to 22 October 2025, almost one hundred officials, educators and local leaders gathered in Brazzaville for a national workshop devoted to the installation of School Management Committees, better known by their French acronym COGES. Opened by Minister of Technical and Vocational Education Ghislain Thierry Maguessa Ebomé and financed by the World Bank through the Accelerating Institutional Governance and Reforms for Sustainable Service Delivery Programme (PAGIR), the…

Presidential Confidence Renews Leadership A presidential decree dated 16 October reconfirmed Maixent Raoul Ominga as Director-General of the Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo for a fresh five-year term, subsequent to the adoption of updated corporate statutes by the Council of Ministers in Oyo on 7 October 2025. The decision, welcomed by observers as a signal of institutional continuity, underscores President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s satisfaction with the progress registered since Ominga first assumed office in February 2018 and his subsequent reconfirmation in March 2022. A Balanced Assessment of Two Terms Facing the Brazzaville press corps on 20 October, Ominga offered…

Brazzaville to Become the Capital of Local Content From 4 to 7 November 2025 Brazzaville will welcome the fourth Conference and Exhibition on Local Content in Africa, better known as CECLA 2025. The gathering, convened under the banner “Building Together the Energy Future of Our Continent”, is expected to attract public officials, international oil-and-gas majors, equipment manufacturers, financiers and a growing constellation of Congolese entrepreneurs. In positioning itself as host city, Brazzaville signals that the debate on local content has moved from specialised boardrooms to the centre of national strategy. A Law Waiting in the Wings The Ministry of Hydrocarbons…

An Unprecedented Attack Reverberates Through the Bench Few images strike the legal conscience of a nation as forcefully as the charred remains of an official vehicle parked within a courthouse compound. That is precisely the tableau that confronted magistrates and litigants on 31 October in Pointe-Noire, after unknown individuals set fire to the car of Attorney General Clément Makita, attached to the city’s Court of Appeal. The assault, reportedly committed by a disgruntled litigant who had prevailed in a civil dispute yet struggled to execute the judgment, has jolted the Congolese judicial community and sparked a debate on the safety…

Central African Indigenous Land Rights Under the Spotlight For three intense days, from 29 to 31 October, the Congolese capital became the epicentre of a debate that has long simmered beneath the equatorial canopy. The Regional Network of Indigenous Peoples of Central Africa (Repaleac) convened experts, civil-society leaders and state observers to grapple with the most sensitive of resources: land. Participants converged in a hybrid format, combining face-to-face exchanges with remote interventions, to crystallise a Community of Practice devoted to customary land and forest rights. While the venue was Brazzaville, the stakes encompassed the entire Congo Basin, a region where…

A Recurrent Tax Dilemma in Central Africa When Balthazar Engonga Edjo’o opened the forty-fourth ordinary session of the CEMAC Council of Ministers in Brazzaville on 31 October, his statement was both familiar and urgent. The Community Integration Tax (TCI), legally instituted in 1999 as the cornerstone of the Union économique de l’Afrique centrale (UEAC) financing mechanism, is once again under-performing. According to the Commission’s latest execution report, the average regional recovery rate has hovered below 55 % since 2021, far from the 80 % threshold deemed necessary to finance common policies (CEMAC Commission, 2023). Budget Ambitions Edge Upward for 2026…

A discreet but strategic coalition From the outside, the Network of Consumer Associations may look like a modest civil-society platform, yet its organisational chart reveals a strategic geometry. Established on 18 February 2016 and officially recognised on 20 December 2022, the RAC federates six associations spread from Brazzaville to Ouesso and Makoua. This territorial footprint allows the organisation to monitor markets that range from the urban mass-retail clusters of the capital to more fragmented hinterland outlets. At its helm, Dieudonné Moussala presides over a board that also brings together François Lapa-Lapa as secretary and Patricia Marie Estelle Loemba as rapporteur,…

Overflowing bins test Brazzaville’s resilience In the dense October heat the Congolese capital is holding its breath. Around the metallic skips that punctuate the freshly asphalted avenues, mounds of household refuse have risen day after day, sending acrid smells across Makélékélé, Moungali or Talangaï. Residents advance in zigzags to avoid leachate pools while storm drains, already narrow, are clogged by plastic bags carried by the first rains. The spectacle, reminiscent of previous crises, resurfaces as the personnel of Albayrak, the Turkish company entrusted with municipal collection, pursue a labour dispute that has paralysed their fleet of compactors. Health professionals quietly…

A Farewell Etched in Ancestral Protocol On 19 October 2025 the village of Imvouba, now administratively attached to the newly created Department of Djoué-Léfini, transformed into an open-air throne room. From dawn, processions of mourners advanced along National Road 2, drawn by the solemn promise of witnessing the final passage of former national deputy Gaston Ndivili. White-robed representatives from Inkui, Impôh, Impila, Inzuli, Ngâba, Inga, Igné, Iko, Ikaba, Ingolo, Itaba and Indama dignities—pillars of the Teke political universe—took their places in concentric circles around the casket. In the words of one elder, the scene resembled “a parliament of ancestors convened…