Author: Congo Times

Legal Framework vs Customary Authority When the Congolese Family Code was overhauled in 2016, legislators in Brazzaville hailed it as a milestone in the country’s normative architecture. The text, inspired in part by the Maputo Protocol and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, unequivocally protects a surviving spouse’s right to remain in the marital home and administer joint property. On paper, therefore, dispossession is not a legal option. Yet, in several départements, customary chiefs retain moral authority that can eclipse statutory provisions, particularly in moments of bereavement when emotions and tradition intertwine.…

Credit Vigilance amid Global Headwinds The decision by Standard & Poor’s on 25 July 2025 to reaffirm the Republic of Congo at CCC+/C, accompanied by a stable outlook, surprised few bond desks yet offered a cautiously optimistic signal in a turbulent global environment (S&P communiqué, 25 July 2025). The agency pointed to persistent oil-price volatility, tightening external financial conditions and geopolitical friction as factors that justify the still-speculative grade, but it also highlighted the government’s incremental gains in primary surpluses and cash-management transparency. Domestic Reforms and Digital Revenue Strategies Finance Minister Christian Yoka greeted the rating affirmation as “an encouragement…

State Pageantry Signals Intellectual Diplomacy The vast rotunda of Brazzaville’s Palais des Congrès, usually reserved for continental summits, assumed a scholarly aura on 25 July as President Denis Sassou Nguesso conferred the Grand-Croix of the National Order of Merit upon Professor Théophile Obenga. Flanked by the diplomatic corps and an array of academic robes, the Head of State described the ceremony as a tribute to “knowledge in the service of the Republic,” an expression that quietly situates Brazzaville within the broader African tendency to weaponise soft power through cultural distinction. Observers noted the meticulous protocol, from the cadence of the…

A Regional Tour Crafted for Continental Momentum Between Maputo and Gaborone, the Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Claude Gakosso has pursued an itinerary more evocative of a presidential campaign than a routine multilateral consultation. By mid-week, Mozambican and Botswanan officials had received identical briefing folders detailing Firmin Edouard Matoko’s curriculum vitae, his tenure as UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Priority Africa and External Relations, and a concise manifesto titled “UNESCO With Africa”. According to diplomats present at the closed-door sessions, the minister’s refrain remained constant: Africa must, at last, occupy—not decorate—the centre of UNESCO’s decision-making architecture (Maputo Daily, 23 July 2025).…

A calibrated verdict with regional resonance On 26 June the Tribunal of First Instance in Impfondo, capital of Likouala, imposed three-year imprisonment on one defendant and two-year terms on his accomplices for offences related to the trafficking of a panther skin, claws and a sizeable cache of giant pangolin scales. The court simultaneously levied fines and civil damages amounting to four million CFA francs, a figure that, while significant in local economic terms, remains proportionate to precedents recorded in similar cases in Owando and Dolisie according to data compiled by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Observers from the Projet d’Appui à…

Ceremony at the Palais des Congrès Under the frescoed dome of Brazzaville’s Palais des Congrès, President Denis Sassou Nguesso affixed the green-trimmed sash of the Grand-Croix upon Professor Théophile Obenga on 25 July 2025. Diplomats, cabinet members and academics applauded the elevation, which places the 89-year-old historian in the small circle of Congolese citizens bearing the Republic’s highest civil honour. Observers present noted the President’s assertion that “in venerating scholarship we cement the moral foundations of the state,” a line that resonated across local media (La Semaine Africaine, 26 July 2025). A Scholar’s Trajectory from Mbaya to the Sorbonne Born…

Diplomatic Calendar Marks a Valedictory Visit It was a carefully choreographed moment on 24 July in Brazzaville when Maurizio Cascioli, whose tenure as resident director of the French Development Agency is drawing to a close, stepped once more into the marbled corridors of the Ministry of Environment, Sustainable Development and the Congo Basin. Minister Arlette Soudan-Nonault, long a public advocate of Congo’s climate diplomacy, received the envoy with a cordiality that belied the gravity of their agenda. The session, officially a farewell courtesy call, doubled as a strategic checkpoint in the Republic of Congo’s still-nascent but fast-evolving climate-adaptation drive (Les…

A courtroom verdict reverberates through Likouala The recent ruling of the Court of First Instance in Impfondo, capital of the remote Likouala department, would normally have attracted only modest local attention. Instead, the sentencing of three offenders—Jodel Mouandola, Arel Ebouzi and Parfait Mbekele—to terms ranging from two to three years of imprisonment has circulated swiftly through diplomatic briefings and environmental platforms alike. The men were apprehended in late May in flagrante delicto with a leopard pelt, four giant pangolin claws and a sizeable cache of pangolin scales, contraband that regional investigators have come to recognise as a lucrative micro-commodity on…

A Pan-African Diplomatic Overture With the next election for the helm of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization still two years away, Congo-Brazzaville has elected to break the usual tempo of late-stage lobbying. Since 21 July Foreign Minister Jean-Claude Gakosso has threaded a southern arc from Luanda to Port-Louis, bearing personal letters from President Denis Sassou Nguesso and cultivating an early consensus around the candidacy of Firmin Édouard Matoko. The itinerary, intentionally publicised by both host governments and the Congolese press, underscores Brazzaville’s aspiration to frame the bid as a continental rather than merely national project (Congolese MFA…

A Southern African Overture Sets the Tone By the time Foreign Minister Jean-Claude Gakosso’s aircraft touched down in Port-Louis on 25 July, Brazzaville’s southern African swing had visited Luanda, Windhoek, Gaborone and Maputo before closing in Mauritius. Each stop combined protocol courtesy with sharp electoral arithmetic: twenty-six African votes sit on UNESCO’s Executive Board, and a first movement in the south was deemed pivotal to shaping a pan-African consensus. According to communiqués from the Angolan presidency and the Mauritian State House, heads of state received sealed letters from President Denis Sassou Nguesso urging colleagues to elevate African agency within multilateral…