Author: Congo Times

Brazzaville’s Gymnase Maxime Matsima Sets the Tone The humid Sunday evening of 7 August 2025 offered a scene of orchestrated enthusiasm at Brazzaville’s Gymnase Maxime Matsima, where the opening tip-off of the national basketball championships echoed far beyond the hardwood. Forty-nine clubs across senior men, senior women, junior men and cadet categories embarked on a seventeen-day contest that will culminate on 24 August with the coronation of the 2025 national titleholders (FECOKET press release, 7 Aug 2025). It is the first edition overseen by the newly elected president of the Fédération congolaise de basket-ball, Fabrice Makaya Matève, whose tenure has…

Closing of the 2025 Ordinary Session in Brazzaville Under the marble dome of the Palais des Congrès, the Congolese National Assembly and Senate simultaneously lowered the curtain on their 2025 ordinary session on 13 August. National Assembly Speaker Isidore Mvouba and Senate President Pierre Ngolo, addressing a chamber packed with lawmakers, members of the diplomatic corps and invited observers from the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, sounded a note of cautious optimism. “The quality of deliberation has honoured the expectations of our constituents,” Mvouba stated, acknowledging the diligence of the 151 deputies who sat for twelve uninterrupted weeks of…

A Boulevard Reborn for a Milestone Celebration Shortly after ten o’clock on 15 August 2025, Brazzaville’s recently refurbished General Alfred Raoul Boulevard offered a striking stage for the Republic of the Congo’s 65th anniversary of independence. President Denis Sassou Nguesso, accompanied by First Lady Antoinette Sassou Nguesso, presided over the ceremonies before a grandstand that brought together leaders of all constitutional institutions, the diplomatic corps and an unusually large civilian audience. According to local daily Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, the renovation of the boulevard had been fast-tracked to emphasise “the capital’s new face” ahead of the festivities (Les Dépêches de…

A Novel Rooted in the Pool’s Troubled Memory Published in Brazzaville in 2022, Ghislain Thierry Maguessa Ebome’s Le Repentir unfolds against the backdrop of the Pool region’s militia clashes of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The author, a jurist by training, interlaces legal precision with lyrical prose to chronicle a fictional yet painfully familiar episode of fratricidal violence. Sardine, a former Ninja combatant, confesses to killing the secondary-school student Gilbeau during the height of inter-tribal hostilities. He retains the boy’s school card, a haunting relic that becomes both indictment and icon. When Sardine embarks on a journey to seek…

Global Power Shifts and the Return of Strategic Ambiguity The twilight of the unipolar moment has ushered in a welter of competing centres of influence, magnifying both the promise and the peril of international politics. From Kyiv to Gaza, and in the recent Iranian–Israeli exchanges, conflict theatres now overlap with complex supply-chain interdependencies that bind distant capitals together. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently warned that “the world is closer to a great-power confrontation than at any time in decades,” a sentiment echoed by analysts at the International Crisis Group. Yet within this volatility, middle-ranking states such as the Republic…

Landmark ruling consolidates diplomatic tenure Few judicial pronouncements carry the dual weight of domestic legal finality and diplomatic resonance. In its 13 August 2025 decision, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Congo definitively affirmed the Republic of Bulgaria’s freehold title to parcel No. 97, section O, a 982-square-metre plot in Brazzaville’s central La Poste district. The verdict, unappealable under Congolese procedural law, extinguishes the claim advanced by Congolese citizen Gisèle Ngoma, who had asserted that her 2021 purchase rendered her the lawful owner. By declaring the Bulgarian state the “sole and legitimate proprietor,” the Court has closed a dispute…

A Rural Lifeline Set for Transformation In the early hours of 8 August 2025, drums and ululations rose across the village of Mpiem as Minister of Urban Sanitation, Local Development and Road Maintenance Juste Désiré Mondelé broke ground on the long-awaited upgrading of the 86-kilometre Mpiem-Kindamba corridor. The presence of Pool Prefect Jules Moukala Tchoumou, Mindouli Deputy Adélaïde Moungani and several customary authorities underscored the strategic weight of a route that links four agrarian districts—Kindamba, Kimba, Mayama and Vinza—to Brazzaville’s wholesale markets. According to the ministry’s brief, the six-month works amount to 1.7 billion FCFA, a figure fully integrated into…

A New Generation of Market Actors When thirty freshly–minted entrepreneurs stepped onto the podium of the Ministry of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises on 6 August 2025, Brazzaville’s humid afternoon air carried more than ceremonial fanfare. The graduation of the first cohort of the Genius programme, stewarded by the National Chamber of Women Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs of Congo under Ms Flavie Lombo, crystallised an inflection point in the Republic’s private-sector narrative. For two intensive months the participants – drawn from agribusiness, digital services, fashion and green technologies – moved from tentative ideation to bank-ready projects, mastering business-plan architecture, financial modelling…

Government–World Bank Synergy Bolsters Local Development On 8 August 2025 in the district town of Odziba, the prefect of Djoué-Léfini, Léonidas Carel Mottom Mamoni, cut the ribbon on a project that condenses several strands of Brazzaville’s development doctrine into a single field operation. Known by its French acronym HIMO—Travaux d’assainissement à haute intensité de main-d’œuvre—the programme sits within sub-component 6 of the broader Pro-Climat portfolio financed by the World Bank, with operational support from the World Food Programme and execution by the Congolese NGO Niosi. Officials insist that the scheme reflects President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s emphasis on “développement de proximité,”…

A Dormant Association Awakens In the lecture hall of Brazzaville’s National Institute for Pedagogical Research, an air of cautious enthusiasm prevailed as nearly fifty lecturers and schoolteachers gathered on 9 August 2025. Under the stewardship of Professor Omer Massoumou, the Congolese Association of French Teachers (ACEF) ratified a motion that brings the organisation back to public life after several silent years. The assembly’s objective was unequivocal: to revitalise an institution founded in 2001 to promote excellence in the teaching of French across all educational tiers. The timing is propitious. The Ministry of Primary, Secondary and Literacy Education has recently prioritised…