Author: Congo Times

A seasoned combatant seeks the ballot When Frédéric Bintsangou—better known as Pastor Ntumi—hinted in late 2023 that he might seek formal participation in the Republic of Congo’s 2026 presidential race, diplomats in Brazzaville quietly leafed through peace accords instead of campaign brochures. A key signatory to the December 2017 cease-fire that ended a spiralling conflict in the Pool region (United Nations, 2018), Ntumi embodies both the country’s fragilities and its capacity for accommodation. His stated willingness to exchange the bush for the ballot box is therefore read by many observers as a litmus test of how far national reconciliation has…

A Post-Colonial Arc of Stability Sixty-four years after the tricolour of the French Equatorial territories was lowered, Brazzaville retains an unbroken thread of statehood that many neighbours envy. Independence in 1960 inaugurated a republic committed to Pan-African ideals. The ideological pendulum soon swung left: by 1969 the country had embraced a socialist orientation, aligning itself with the Soviet bloc and Cuba. That experiment, while ambitious in literacy drives and public health, strained fiscal balances in the oil-scarce early 1980s. With the Cold War thaw, Congolese leaders convened a National Conference in 1991, shelved Marxist doctrine in 1990 and opened multiparty…

Equatorial Crossroads and the Quiet Search for Balance Straddling the Equator, the Republic of the Congo occupies a deceptively modest 342,000-square-kilometre corridor that links the Gulf of Guinea to the heart of Central Africa. The coastal plain spreads like a narrow apron from the Atlantic before yielding to the rugged Mayombé Massif and, farther east, to the vast plateaus guarding the Congo River. More than a topographical curiosity, this gradual rise furnishes an essential buffer against coastal erosion while allowing road and rail projects to connect Pointe-Noire with Brazzaville without excessive engineering outlays. Diplomatic observers note that the government has…

Anniversary Diplomacy Rekindles Old Debates The marble corridors of United Nations Headquarters rarely lack for commemorative speeches, yet the address delivered on 26 June 2025 by Angolan President João Lourenço, who currently chairs the African Union, resonated with an unusual blend of ceremony and urgency. Marking the eightieth anniversary of the San Francisco Charter, he warned that the Organisation’s credibility will continue to erode unless its governance architecture is recalibrated to reflect contemporary geopolitical fault lines. His argument, framed in impeccably measured diplomatic prose, rested on a simple premise: the international security order can no longer be stewarded by an…

Demographic Surge Transforms Urban Mobility Every census conducted since the turn of the millennium confirms that Brazzaville is no longer a medium-sized river city but a sprawling metropolis of more than two million inhabitants. The Congolese National Institute of Statistics estimates an annual growth rate above 4 percent, fuelled by rural-to-urban migration and a steady influx of cross-border traders. Demography alone does not clog the avenues; yet in the absence of proportional investment in transport infrastructure, it magnifies the limitations of arteries originally designed for far lighter traffic. Government planners concede that commuter times have doubled on several corridors since…

A Farewell Steeped in State Ritual The solemn ceremony of 25 June at Brazzaville’s Palais des Congrès, attended by the presidential couple and the full spectrum of national institutions, was choreographed with the deliberate precision that characterises Congolese state protocol. Observers noted the convergence of military honours, liturgical cadence and traditional invocations, underscoring the Republic’s determination to weave its various historical threads into a single narrative of continuity. According to the public broadcaster Télé Congo, the live transmission drew an unusually high audience share, suggesting a society keen to contemplate both its collective past and its immediate future. A Classroom…

Global Fund’s New Injection of Confidence and Cash The streets of Brazzaville’s central district briefly resembled a diplomatic fairground on 27 June, as refrigerated trucks emblazoned with the United Nations logo were lined up for formal hand-over to the Congolese authorities. The ceremony marked the arrival of equipment acquired by the United Nations Development Programme through a USD 2.8 million tranche of Global Fund resources. It also served as the de facto launch of a larger, three-year envelope valued at EUR 90 million. That sum, approved in Geneva last December, will cover antiretroviral therapies, anti-tubercular drugs and long-lasting insecticidal nets…

Brazzaville charts an orderly departure from oil dependency In the corridors of the Ministry of Hydrocarbons, officials often evoke the mantra that “oil built the nation, gas will modernise it, and renewables will sustain it”. The government’s 2024–2035 energy plan, released in January and endorsed in principle by President Denis Sassou Nguesso, envisions a gradual reallocation of fiscal revenues from mature offshore oil fields toward associated-gas valorisation, solar micro-grids in remote départements and the rehabilitation of the Inga-Congo interconnection. According to the International Energy Agency, Congo possesses more than 200 billion cubic metres of proven gas reserves, much of it…

Parental diplomacy in the national education arena When the Congolese National Association of Parents of Pupils and Students convened its extraordinary general assembly in Brazzaville, the tone was unmistakably statesmanlike. Far from a mere domestic quarrel, the session chaired by Christian Grégoire Epouma framed the safeguarding of minors as a question of public credibility and international reputation. Delegates underscored that the Republic of Congo, as a signatory to both the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, stands duty-bound to offer an environment in which learning…

A geopolitical backdrop to a domestic price battle Inflation is no longer an abstract macroeconomic statistic for the average household in Brazzaville or Pointe-Noire; it is the daily arithmetic of the marketplace. According to the International Monetary Fund’s October 2023 World Economic Outlook, consumer-price growth in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community hovered around 5.7 percent, a level unfamiliar to a region accustomed to single-digit stability. The external shocks are well documented—logistical dislocations triggered by the pandemic, the cascading effects of the war in Ukraine on cereal and fertiliser supplies, and a strengthening US dollar that imported inflation into…