Author: Congo Times

An inaugural session under heightened expectations For forty-eight hours, from 30 to 31 October 2025, the hemicycle of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) in Brazzaville was the scene of dense exchanges that launched the institution’s new five-year term. Presiding over the opening, Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso reminded the audience that “the solutions to our challenges require the association of all intelligences”, a phrase that quickly became the leitmotif of the meeting. Around him sat ministers, constitutional figures and representatives of the country’s socio-professional bodies, united by the desire to give substance to participatory democracy in Congo-Brazzaville. A…

An attempted sale thwarted in Bouenza The dusty afternoon of 28 October 2025 had barely begun in Nkayi when officers from the Bouenza regional gendarmerie, working in tandem with specialists from the Departmental Directorate of Forestry Economy, intercepted a man carrying a small wooden cage. Inside, clinging to the bars with fragile fingers, a six-month-old Pan troglodytes troglodytes stared back at them. According to the initial report, the suspect, a Congolese national in his early forties, intended to negotiate a clandestine sale on the outskirts of the city. His arrest, carried out with logistical backing from the Wildlife Law Enforcement…

A strategic visit under scrutiny The sharp morning light of 7 November had barely pierced the corridors of the Talangai District Reference Hospital when Professor Jean Rosaire Ibara, Minister of Health and Population, stepped through the front gates. Officially, the agenda spoke of a routine inspection of emergency, maternity and paediatric wards, as well as the resuscitation unit currently undergoing renovation. In practice, the visit was anything but routine. Word had spread about rising concerns over professional conduct within one of Brazzaville’s busiest public hospitals, prompting the minister to couple his tour with a high-level meeting of the managerial board…

Community Concerns Trigger Swift Response When refuse piled high across the Liberty Market and adjoining neighbourhoods of Tié-Tié, residents of Pointe-Noire voiced an anxiety that transcended mere inconvenience. Their appeal reached the Directorate-General for Finance and Equipment of the National Police and Gendarmerie, whose chief, Colonel-Major Michel Innocent Peya, answered with military promptitude. In the absence of the private contractors Averda and Albayrak, whose suspension of service had left the country’s two largest cities in disarray, the DGFE deployed its freshly created Sanitation and Environmental Protection Unit, acting on the standing instruction of President Denis Sassou Nguesso to tighten the…

Crisis In Waste Management Spurs Swift State Response For several weeks the economic capital Pointe-Noire, like Brazzaville, had been grappling with mountains of refuse after the sudden suspension of services by the Lebanese firm Averda and the delayed arrival of its Turkish successor Albayrak. The interruption created a visible environmental emergency: makeshift dumps mushroomed beside markets, junctions and even under high-voltage lines. Residents voiced their concern to national authorities, pointing to threats of flooding, vector-borne diseases and power outages sparked by the practice of burning garbage to make space (Les Échos du Congo-Brazzaville). Responding to the appeal and in line…

Government clarifies the scope of the freeze The Interior Trade Director, Belly Fugain Bialoungoulou, flanked by his counterpart in charge of commercial fraud repression, Blaise Mayama Kouenda, entered the press room in Brazzaville on 5 November with a single objective: to dispel the confusion stirred by a recent ministerial circular. Contrary to rumours of a blanket prohibition, the two senior civil servants explained that only fresh imports of machetes and motorbikes are affected. Goods that have already cleared customs retain full freedom of circulation and may reach shop shelves at their usual prices. By framing the decision in those terms,…

An appeal for restraint amid mounting frustration The hush of the Senate chamber in Brazzaville was broken on 7 November when its president, Pierre Ngolo, addressed a delegation representing three associations of civil-service retirees. With measured diction he invited his elderly interlocutors to “trust us and allow us to seek, together, solutions to your concerns”, asking them to suspend the sit-ins they had announced for 17 November in front of the Prime Minister’s office and provincial administrative buildings. The warning was also a call for prudence: “If the sages begin to break, I do not know what the young will…

Judiciary capacity-building and business climate From the wood-panelled auditorium of the Higher School of Magistracy in Brazzaville a clear message was sent this week: securing ideas has become as strategic as protecting borders. Opening a three-day seminar devoted to intellectual property (IP) law, Minister of Industrial Development and Private-Sector Promotion Antoine Nycéphore Thomas Fylla de Saint Eudes argued that legal predictability is now a decisive variable in Congo-Brazzaville’s competitiveness matrix. “There can be no lasting growth without equity before the law,” he reminded the 55 judges enrolled in the programme, insisting that jurisprudence must keep pace with the technological leaps…

Brazzaville becomes the continental spotlight The Congolese capital has assumed a festive yet studious atmosphere since 5 November, as the 10th edition of “Femmes Spéciales, Brazzaville 2025” gathered entrepreneurs, managers, artists and academics from across Africa and its diaspora. The four-day forum, patronised by Minister-Counsellor Aline France Etokabeka and presided over by Belinda Ayessa, Director-General of the Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza Memorial, occupies a symbolic place in the city’s cultural calendar. Its theme — “Celebrating Strong Women and Innovation” — encapsulates a deliberate ambition: to showcase the dynamism of female leadership while situating Brazzaville as a hub for creative thought…

A strategic pact for the planet In the margins of recent multilateral climate discussions, France, supported by Germany, Norway, Belgium and the United Kingdom, announced a financial envelope of approximately US$2.5 billion dedicated to the conservation and sustainable management of the Congo Basin rainforest. The pledge, circulated in a non-paper consulted by our newsroom, seeks to consolidate disparate funding streams under a single, results-oriented architecture that gives regional governments, foremost among them the Republic of the Congo, a decisive voice in project selection. French diplomats describe the programme as a “strategic pact for the planet” that complements existing mechanisms such…