"LE GABON ENERVANT" OR "ANNOYING GABON"

 

English version  In September 2025, Ethiopia inaugurated Africa's largest hydroelectric dam. At the same time, Libreville residents were lighting their homes with candles. The contrast is not just a matter of means: it is a matter of choices. This week again, Greater Libreville is enduring power cuts, and CBON has had to issue an ultimatum to the SEEG. Meanwhile, a landlocked country, poorer and more populous than ours, is completing one major energy project after another. It is time to look at what Ethiopia has done, and what we have not. Ethiopia: three giants in ten years On September 9, 2025, Ethiopia inaugurated the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile. With 5,150 MW of installed capacity, it more than doubles the country's electricity capacity and becomes the largest hydroelectric facility on the continent. This is no one-off. Ten years earlier, in 2015, Gilgel Gibe III came online with 1,870 MW. And the Koysha project, on the Omo River, is set to add a...

English version  Greater Libreville is once again living with power cuts, and CBON has issued the SEEG yet another ultimatum. But behind this "maximum pressure," one question remains: how can a company supposedly under recovery for years still be in such a critical state? This Wednesday, November 11, the front page of the daily  L'Union  captured the general mood. On Monday, CBON received the SEEG's leadership and demanded the daily publication of a precise outage schedule, neighborhood by neighborhood. Officially, these power cuts are the price to pay for connecting the Kinguélé-Aval power plant to the capital's grid. For many Libreville residents, it is mostly one more episode in a crisis that never ends. A recovery that never ends Since the break with Veolia in 2018, the State has taken back control of the SEEG, promising to put the company back on its feet. Eight years later, rescue plans, audits and management changes have followed one another without any las...