"LE GABON ENERVANT" OR "ANNOYING GABON"

English version  For many Gabonese, the handful of buildings rising at La Baie des Rois, Cité Émeraude and elsewhere are a sign that the country is developing. Unfortunately, they are mistaken. Development is something else entirely. Dear readers, showcase buildings mostly measure how much capital is concentrated in a few hands, and they represent only a handful of projects, not an improvement in the living conditions of the majority. A glass tower tells us that an investor found money and a plot of land. It says nothing about the mother waiting for water to come out of the tap, the pupil squeezed three to a bench, or the sick person going from pharmacy to pharmacy. Mistaking concrete for progress is like gazing into a shop window at overpriced jewellery you will never be able to afford. Development is measured by what people are able to do with their lives, not by the height of buildings. The economist Amartya Sen defines it as the expansion of real freedoms: the freedom to get me...

 

English version  A single power line fails, and the whole capital goes dark. The September crisis reveals a Gabonese grid built with no safety margin at all. Since 13 September, Greater Libreville has been living to the rhythm of load shedding. From Bikélé to Owendo, by way of Awendjé and IAI, no neighbourhood has been spared. Residents worry about their freezers, shopkeepers about their business, and anger is rising against SEEG. But beyond this outage, one question stands out: why is a single incident enough to paralyse an entire metropolitan area? It all started with a cable. During the night of 13 to 14 September, a conductor snapped on the Bisségué–Owendo 90 kV overhead line, one of the main routes carrying electricity to the capital. SEEG described a major failure that triggered cascading malfunctions across several parts of the grid. At the same time, Karpowership was carrying out maintenance on its floating power plant based in Owendo. The result: the Interconnected Grid lo...