Author: Congo Times

Senate Green Light Signals Policy Continuity In less than an hour of debate, the Congolese Senate approved two instruments that anchor the country’s Digital Acceleration Project in the medium-term expenditure framework. The first, a €26 million credit line from the European Investment Bank, and the second, a grant package worth roughly CFAF 9.4 billion, sailed through on 28 July under the gavel of Senate President Pierre Ngolo. The ease of passage, diplomats in Brazzaville observe, reflects a cross-party understanding that the digital economy is no longer a discretionary add-on but a macro-critical sector, a view echoed by several African Development…

From Libreville’s Palais Rénovation to Paris’s Place de Fontenoy The marble corridors of Libreville’s Palais Rénovation offered an emblematic stage for Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso’s encounter with Gabon’s transitional head of state, Brigadier General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, on 28 July. Officially, the audience concerned bilateral cooperation; substantively, it launched Brazzaville’s full-scale campaign for Firmin Édouard Matoko, the Congolese diplomat whose candidacy for Director-General of UNESCO was registered at the Organisation’s headquarters in early April (Congolese Government Communiqué, 5 April 2024). By travelling in person rather than relying on envoys, Mr Makosso signalled that the matter had crossed the…

A Prodigy Emerges on the St. Lawrence When the International Francophone Scrabble Federation gathered more than 280 players from five continents in Trois-Rivières last July, few observers expected the most dramatic narrative arc to belong to a 17-year-old student who had travelled from Brazzaville largely on crowdfunding and family savings. Yet by the evening of 18 July, Briny Oscar Kouba Matouridi was walking through the lobby of the Delta Marriott with five medals around his neck, three of them gold, having matched Belgian veteran Jean-Luc Deneve at –28 on the cumulative grid (results confirmed by the FISF match bulletin and…

Strategic Warehousing for Grid Stability Few events in the technical life of a power network attract political symbolism. Yet the hand-over of two purpose-built warehouses to Energie Électrique du Congo (E2C) on 28 July in Brazzaville was staged with the ceremonial solemnity usually reserved for power-plant inaugurations. Standing among rows of freshly painted steel racks, Minister of Energy and Hydraulics Emile Ouosso saluted what he called “the quiet insurance policy of our transmission backbone,” a reference to the 2 000 m² of sheltered floor space now allocated exclusively to transformers, circuit breakers and gas-insulated components. The facilities—one at Itatolo in…

A Ceremony Rich in Symbolism The marble atrium of Brazzaville’s Palais des Congrès seldom falls silent, yet on 25 July 2025 an unusual hush preceded presidential protocol. Moments later, President Denis Sassou Nguesso fastened the crimson sash of Grand-Croix of the Congolese Order of Merit on the shoulders of Professor Joseph Théophile Obenga, while a diplomatic gallery observed with studied attentiveness. In the official narrative, the decoration rewards “exceptional service to national prestige”; in practice, it binds the state to one of its most compelling public intellectuals, an octogenarian whose academic itinerary mirrors a good portion of Africa’s own search…

Continental Momentum behind Congo’s Nominee When the UNESCO Executive Board closed the window for submissions on 15 March 2025, only three names lay on the table. One belonged to Edouard Firmin Matoko, a seasoned Congolese technocrat whose career inside the Paris-based organisation spans more than two decades. By 14 May, President Denis Sassou Nguesso had elevated Matoko to the rank of itinerant ambassador, signalling that the contest would be met with the full weight of Brazzaville’s foreign-policy apparatus. For the Congolese leadership, the October 2025 vote is not merely institutional housekeeping; it is a symbolic battlefield on which Africa’s voice…

Regional monetary pulse reaches a decade high The Communauté économique et monétaire de l’Afrique centrale closed 2024 with a fiduciary circulation of 5 363.3 billion CFA francs, a level unseen since the 2014 oil-price shock. According to the Banque des États de l’Afrique centrale’s annual compendium, this translates into roughly 9.6 billion United States dollars, marking a year-on-year expansion of 13.03 percent (BEAC Annual Report 2024). The International Monetary Fund’s October 2024 Regional Economic Outlook corroborates the upswing, noting that post-pandemic retail activity, higher hydrocarbon receipts and the gradual normalisation of cross-border trade have jointly lifted cash demand across the…

Civil Society as a Vector of Preventive Health in Congo In the early light of 26 July, more than fifty members of the Lheyet-Gaboka Association for Development (ALGD) converged on the Republic Roundabout in Brazzaville to inaugurate what their president, Axel Ariel Dinghat Mouenokanga, framed as ‘a mobile seminar on longevity’. Far from a mere stroll, the march responded to World Health Organization findings that physical inactivity remains a leading risk factor for non-communicable diseases (WHO 2022). By convening citizens across professional, age and gender lines, the association transformed a routine fitness activity into a demonstration of civil-society commitment to…

A Confluence of Sport and Statecraft When the first balls struck the freshly resurfaced courts of the Brazzaville Tennis Pole on 28 July, the event transcended mere athletic competition. The ITF World Tennis Tour M25 Open—staged in two consecutive legs until 10 August—embodies a calibrated exercise in nation branding. With eighty-five athletes representing twenty-two countries across four continents, the Republic of Congo is deploying tennis as a subtle extension of diplomacy, echoing trends observed in Doha, Kigali and Abu Dhabi (International Tennis Federation, 2024). Infrastructure as a Statement of Intent The venue, adjacent to the storied Alphonse-Massamba-Débat Stadium, was overhauled…

Brazzaville Celebrates a Mind-Sport Laureate Few audiences in the cabinet room of the Primature are as unabashedly jubilant as the one that welcomed Briny Oscar Matouridi on 26 July in Brazzaville. Flanked by Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso and Youth and Sports Minister Hugues Ngouelondélé, the 17-year-old returned from the 53rd Francophone World Scrabble Championships in Trois-Rivières, Canada, carrying five medals—two of them gold—earned against competitors ranging from rising talents to veteran grand masters (Fédération Internationale de Scrabble Francophone communique, 25 July 2023). From Classroom Desks to Quebec Podiums Matouridi’s ascent is emblematic of a generation shaped as much by…