Author: Congo Times

A Cultural Diplomat Ascends the Political Ladder Before entering the cabinet, Martin M’Beri was best known as a musicologist who helped professionalise Brazzaville’s National Ballet in the late 1970s (UNESCO archives, 1991). The red carpets of cultural festivals introduced him to foreign ministers and heads of state, endowing him with a rare fluency in both artistic and diplomatic language. When he joined President Denis Sassou-Nguesso’s first administration in 1984 as Minister of Culture, he turned cultural performance into soft-power outreach, dispatching orchestras to Lagos and Paris at a time when Congo’s economy was faltering under oil price shocks. His trajectory…

A Quiet Revolution in Abuja Behind the ceremonial photographs taken on 25 June 2025 in Abuja, the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) unveiled what its architects call the African Currency Marketplace, an electronic bazaar through which importers in Lagos may settle invoices in naira while exporters in Kigali receive Rwanda francs within seconds. Sponsored by Afreximbank, in concert with the African Union Commission and the AfCFTA Secretariat, the project seeks to erode the hegemony of third-party hard currencies in African trade. In the words of Afreximbank president Benedict Oramah, the Marketplace is designed to “make the Washington Consensus irrelevant…

Scramble for Africa and the Birth of Twin Polities When the Berlin Conference adjourned in 1885, Europe’s cabinet cartographers believed they had imposed definitive order on Central Africa. The signatures of diplomats, however, travelled faster than surveyors’ theodolites. France and Belgium each secured a stake along the sinuous Congo River, a waterway whose commercial allure was celebrated by King Leopold II as “the highway to untold riches” (Hochschild 1998). The northern bank fell to Paris as part of French Equatorial Africa, while the southern arc became the personal preserve of Leopold’s Congo Free State. Two administrative capitals—Brazzaville, named after explorer…

Brazzaville’s Banking Beacon and the Promise of Diversification A glossy marketing blitz now greets travellers at Maya-Maya airport: “Invest with Confidence – Crédit du Congo”. The slogan seeks to position the 70-year-old institution, recently acquired by Teyliom’s Vista Group, as the financial spearhead of a new development narrative for the Republic of Congo. Executives in Brazzaville insist the moment is opportune. After two years of modest post-pandemic growth, the International Monetary Fund projects the Congolese economy to expand by 4.3 percent in 2024, provided oil revenues are channelled into productive sectors (IMF, 2023). Yet capital formation remains anaemic, averaging barely…

A discreet show of solidarity in Brazzaville The atrium of WHO’s Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville is usually animated by data dashboards and the discreet hum of epidemiologists poring over surveillance figures. On 10 June, however, it hosted an atypical gathering: Regional Director Dr Matshidiso Moeti stood before several hundred staff members, praising their “tenacity in the face of cascading crises” (WHO Africa press release, 11 June 2024). The meeting, neither formally advertised nor live-streamed, was conceived as an inward-looking moment of solidarity after a gruelling biennium marked by back-to-back emergencies. Moeti’s brief remarks, delivered in English and deftly…

A geographically landlocked nation looks to the sea When the National Defence University of Zimbabwe (NDUZ) unveiled its new Centre for Maritime Strategy late last month, sceptics were quick to point out the obvious: Zimbabwe has no coastline. Yet, in a region where over 90 percent of external trade moves by sea, even a land-locked state cannot afford strategic myopia. According to Vice-Chancellor Air Vice-Marshal Michael Tedzani Moyo, Harare’s decision to court expertise from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) stems from a sober reading of Southern Africa’s economic map. The Beira and Durban corridors that feed Zimbabwean commerce are…

Batola’s political pedigree and his moment on the national stage The name Franck Davy Batola rarely featured in diplomatic dispatches until late 2023, when the legal-scholar-turned-advisor began circulating a memorandum titled “Nouvelle Confiance, Nouvelle Gouvernance” to parliamentarians in Brazzaville. A former lecturer at Marien-Ngouabi University and, briefly, a consultant to the Economic Commission for Central Africa, Batola has cultivated an image of technocratic independence while maintaining discreet ties to the governing Parti congolais du travail, according to two senior officials who requested anonymity. His recent media interventions, amplified by independent broadcaster Vox and the pan-African daily Jeune Afrique, have cast…

Overflowing bins meet ambitious promises When the Republic of Congo signed a twenty-year public-private partnership with Turkey’s Albayrak Group in late 2022, the memorandum hailed the arrival of a ‘comprehensive urban sanitation revolution’. The contract—reportedly valued at 150 million USD over its first five years (Jeune Afrique, November 2022)—mandates the Turkish conglomerate to modernise waste collection, refurbish landfills and introduce recycling facilities in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire. The optimism that followed the ceremonial launch, however, is now colliding with a visible accumulation of household refuse along major arteries such as Avenue Matsoua in Brazzaville and the coastal Boulevard du Général-de-Gaulle in…

A Turkish Conglomerate Lands in Brazzaville When the Republic of Congo awarded its first large-scale urban sanitation concession to Istanbul-based Albayrak Group in 2021, the agreement was heralded in both Ankara and Brazzaville as a template for South–South cooperation (Congolese Presidency 2021). The five-year, USD 60 million contract covers waste collection, landfill management and street cleaning in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, two cities that together generate an estimated 1,200 tons of solid waste daily (UN-Habitat 2022). Albayrak executives promised modern fleets, GPS-tracked routes and job creation for some 2,500 local workers. For President Denis Sassou Nguesso, the deal answered growing popular…

A handshake at Saint-Petersburg echoes along the Congo River When President Denis Sassou Nguesso strode into the 2023 Russia–Africa Summit in Saint-Petersburg, few doubted that hydrocarbons would dominate his private exchanges with President Vladimir Putin. Yet the swiftness with which both leaders announced an enlarged energy roadmap startled even seasoned Kremlin watchers. According to Kremlin readouts and Congolese state media, the two sides agreed to advance joint ventures covering offshore crude, liquefied natural gas and civilian nuclear technology (RIA Novosti, July 2023). Oil blocks and sanctions: a marriage of convenience Russian majors, hemmed in by Western sanctions, are scouting for…