Author: Congo Times

Mbalam-Nabeba Project Accelerates Toward Early Output When the first shovel broke ground at Souanké in May 2024, investors pencilled in 2025 as the inaugural year of production. Barely eight weeks later, Bestway-Finance chief executive Alexandre Mbiam felt confident enough to move the milestone forward to December 2024. Speaking in Brazzaville on 4 July, he told senior officials gathered by Minister of State Pierre Oba that the ramp-up is tracking “very satisfactorily”, with beneficiation units already 42 % complete and pre-strip mining under way on the Nabeba ridge (Congo Ministry of Mines communiqué, 4 July 2024). The transboundary undertaking—embracing Nabeba, Avima…

A rainforest asset poised to shift Central Africa’s economic gravity When the first dynamite charges detonated in Nabeba in May 2024, few observers expected the project’s calendar to contract by a full year. Yet the joint statement released in Brazzaville on 4 July confirmed an ambitious December 2024 start-up for the Mbalam-Nabeba iron-ore complex. The deposits straddle the Congo–Cameroon border and collectively hold more than 3.5 billion tonnes of high-grade ore, an endowment that geology journals have long described as one of the continent’s largest unexploited troves (Journal of African Earth Sciences, 2023). By translating subterranean potential into exportable reality,…

An Oath Echoing Through the Marble Hall The vaulted courtroom of the Brazzaville Palace of Justice offered an almost theatrical backdrop on 3 July as Dr Valère Gabriel Eteka-Yemet raised his right hand before the Supreme Court. Flanked by the Court’s First President Henri Bouka and observed by senior ministers and diplomatic envoys, the newly appointed Mediator of the Republic pledged to “respect the Constitution and serve without fear or favour”, a formula that resonates strongly in a polity where institutional confidence is gradually consolidating (Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, 4 July 2024). From Human Rights to Ombudsman: A Continuum of…

Historic affinities recalibrated for contemporary stakes At first glance the memorandum of understanding signed on 2 July in Abidjan between the National Assemblies of Congo-Brazzaville and Côte d’Ivoire appears as a conventional inter-parliamentary protocol. Yet, diplomats on both shores of the Gulf of Guinea immediately sensed a broader, almost inter-generational resonance. Speaker Isidore Mvouba, entrusted with a personal missive from President Denis Sassou Nguesso, reminded his Ivorian interlocutors that Brazzaville’s current head of state once sought counsel from President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, drafting notes “with a schoolboy’s diligence”, as he colourfully put it in Abidjan. That anecdote, reported by the Congolese…

An Qing’s Credence Ceremony and the Promise of Diplomatic Continuity The presentation of letters of credence by Ambassador An Qing to President Denis Sassou Nguesso on 29 June 2025 offered more than ceremonial protocol. The veteran diplomat, previously deputy director-general for African affairs at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, underscored in her initial statement that Brazzaville occupies “a pivotal intersection between the Gulf of Guinea and the Belt and Road” (Xinhua, 30 June 2025). By honoring the memory of her late predecessor Li Yan while pledging to ‘leave no stone unturned’ in elevating bilateral ties, An Qing signaled a…

Strategic Convergence of Vision and Opportunity In the geometric heart of Central Africa, Brazzaville has quietly become a test-bed for what Congolese policymakers term a “responsible Afrofuturism”. Far from the hyperbole that often surrounds artificial intelligence, the concept stresses a calibrated fusion of ancestral knowledge systems, modern data science and the eighteen pillars of the national digital plan adopted under President Denis Sassou Nguesso. That plan, unveiled at the OSIANE forum and refined in partnership with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, deliberately links every line of code to a measurable Sustainable Development Goal (UNECA 2023). The approach reflects…

A Symbolic Handshake Rooted in Historical Affinities The cooperation accord initialed on 4 July in Brazzaville was more than a routine academic gesture; it resurrected a long-standing friendship that traces back to the early 1960s, when Soviet universities opened their lecture halls to African liberation leaders. Professor Parisse Akouango, President of Marien Ngouabi University, and Dr Natalia Pomortseva, who led the Russian delegation, framed the signature as a natural extension of those formative decades. Russian officials present at the ceremony underlined that Congo remains a “priority partner” in Moscow’s renewed outreach to Sub-Saharan Africa, a position echoed by several analysts…

Pluralism by Statute in Brazzaville The Republic of Congo’s 1992 Constitution, refreshed in 2015, articulates a right to free association that has translated into a notably dense partisan landscape. Forty-two parties are today listed in the Official Journal, a figure confirmed by the Ministry of Territorial Administration in March 2024. While regional neighbours often hover below the twenty-party threshold, Brazzaville’s authorities have adopted a permissive registration regime that privileges procedural compliance over ideological gatekeeping (Congo Ministry of Interior 2024). The outcome is a political agora where long-standing formations such as the Parti Congolais du Travail, or PCT, legally coexist with…

Scaling Horizons in Pointe-Noire Congo-Brazzaville’s Atlantic capital of industry will, for five days in early August, pivot from oil platforms to academic platforms. The fourth edition of the Gala of Bacheliers, curated by Kima Events with the support of local chambers of commerce and ministerial partners, now occupies a firm place on Pointe-Noire’s civic calendar. Its declared ambition is straightforward yet strategic: accompany freshly minted secondary-school graduates from the exhilaration of examination halls into the more complex arena of higher education and the labour market. The organisers’ choice of venues, moving from the Cercle Africain museum in 2022 to Canal…

Farewell Ceremony Signals Continuity in Bilateral Ties On 4 July, within the marbled halls of the Presidential Palace in Brazzaville, Ambassador Eugene Young presented his letters of recall to President Denis Sassou Nguesso, marking the close of a tenure that began in March 2021. The ceremony, conducted with characteristic Congolese protocol, provided an opportunity for the envoy to highlight what he called “three years of pragmatic partnership in service of our two peoples” (Agence Congolaise d’Information, 4 July 2024). Three Years Framed by Pandemic and Geopolitical Flux Mr Young’s arrival coincided with the global health crisis and shifting strategic priorities…