"LE GABON ENERVANT" OR "ANNOYING GABON"

Andre Mba-Obame English version The inevitable destination is democracy; the inevitable step is the Sovereign national Conference In his interview to Echos du Nord, Andre Mba-Obame opines that the implantation of democracy in Gabon is inevitable and that the idea of a Sovereign National Conference is slowly gaining steam despite all attempt by the Ali Bongo regime to slow that idea down. Andre Mba-Obame is operating under a very simple assumption: most people in the world yearn to devise their own government systems, and the Gabonese people are not an exception. The Gabonese people have become politically mature enough to create their own government systems with the accountability, transparency, pluralism, the rule of law and all aspect of quality democracies. Andre Mba-Obame instinctively understands that when countries are well managed and citizens feel they have a say in political and economic developments, tensions decrease and eventually disappear an...

Andre Mba-Obame English version An acute sense of political observation In our previous post, we had analyzed the impact of the information Andre Mba-Obame revealed about his health. In this post, we would like to concentrate on the political observation he made during the interview in Echos du Nord. If it is clear that Andre Mba-Obame is physically convalescing, reading his assessment of the political and social situation in Gabon gives the unambiguous impression that he is absolutely aware, and to the minute, of everything going on in the country. His command of the issues never betrays any deficiencies or indication of somebody who has been away for a long time. The first thing he mentions is the commitment of members of the party Union Nationale, who despite being civil servants, have had their salaries interrupted by the Ali Bongo's regime, in an effort to make them bow down to the dictator's authority. But Andre Mba-Obame says that more than 2...

Photo Echos du Nord English version To our readers who have asked us to publish the newspaper “Echos du Nord” containing the interview of Andre Mba-Obame, we would like to say that we wish to do so very soon; we have received a copy but its quality was not publishable and we have made another request to obtain a better copy. Once we receive it, we will put it online immediately. Andre Mba-Obame spoke in this week’s “Echos du Nord” and that interview totally sucked up all the Gabonese political oxygen. It must be very frustrating for Ali Bongo to have to find himself constantly ignored by the population while somebody who has no real executive power in the country can get all the attention just by opening his mouth and speaking to the Gabonese people. Either this shows the political strength of Andre Mba-Obame; the political weakness of Ali Bongo; or maybe a combination of both. Regardless of what one may think about Andre Mba-Obame, no one could deny his political...

English version A few days ago, after we published an excerpt of the Finance Act 2013 of the Gabonese Government, showing that the costs of stewardship for the President of the National Assembly are in the hundreds of millions of CFA francs per year, one of our readers wrote to ask if the information we had was not satires. After verification, we confirmed that the information was true and that the Finance Act was the expenditures deemed necessary by the Gabonese state during the year 2013. After reading that document, we would wish for it to be a satire, because in a country like Gabon it is astounding to see the freedom with which some use of the Finance Act to subtract large sums of money from the state, by means of fictitious expenses and projects that are totally unnecessary. 1. Why is a budget necessary? Countries have to be able to efficiently manage their expenditures. In the case of Gabon, to have a budget is even more important due to the recurrent an...

Jean Felix Mouloungui English version A reader sent to us the text below for publication. As you know, we are a tribune for the Gabonese people and even if we would have liked to modify certain part of this text, we decided to publish it as submitted by the author, and let you the readers be the judges. To not publish this text would have been in contradiction with our goal to foster freedom of expression among all Gabonese citizens. The exemplary duties of Jean Félix MOULOUNGUI Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Agency for the Execution of Activities in the Forest Wood sector Who said that emergence was the best shared item for the flocks in Power? We are now more than two years after the adoption of the decision variably appreciated by Ali Bongo, to suspend the export of logs, to enable the increase of local processing of wood. That decision, carrying in my opinion of substantial economic “long term benefits” was the death knell of a pr...

Anne-Cécile-Makosso Akendengué English version Dear readers, we wanted to inform you of the publication of the book "Ceci n'est pas l'Afrique", by Anne-Cécile-Makosso Akendengué, in Graveurs de mémoire collection of the Editions l'Harmattan. In this book, the author Anne-Cécile-Makosso Akendengué born Frébeau, in a story in the first person, talks about her twenty years in Gabon. She expresses what she felt in Gabon, relative to her entourage, her views of the country, life situations, everyday life; all of this in a style away from the usual clichés. The author currently lives in Angers where she works in music. She had published a novel in 2007, Mathilde et son pianiste, published by "Les 2 Encres" editions. Here is the book review done by Luc Melmont on the site "Culture et Chanson" Ceci n'est pas l'Afrique: Portrait of a modern and surprising Africa It is common to hear that...