"LE GABON ENERVANT" OR "ANNOYING GABON"

English version  Harry Truman was the 33rd president, serving from April 12, 1945, until January 20, 1953. He took office when Franklin D. Roosevelt died, then won a full term in his own right in the 1948 election. He famously said the following that this blog would like to submit to observers of the Gabonese political scene: « I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable, that would commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency. Show me a man that gets rich by being a politician, and I’ll show you a crook. » Harry Truman treated wealth gained through public office as evidence of corruption. The logic being that a politician's income comes from a salary, so getting rich must mean using the office for private gain (bribes, insider deals, favors). This reflects a real ethical principle, that public office is a trust and shouldn't be a business. However, it should not be use as a sweeping generalization. Some politicians, most...

  English version  Shown above is a ranking of average math scores among 15-year-olds from the OECD's PISA 2025 results. PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is a standardized test run every three years that measures how well students can apply math, reading, and science to real-world problems, not just recall what they were taught. The dotted line marks the OECD average of 463. Why does it matters? • It's a common yardstick. Few tools compare education systems across dozens of countries on the same scale. • It guides policy. Governments study top performers like Singapore, Japan, and Estonia and adapt their reforms. • It signals future skills. Math ability is tied to a country's capacity for innovation, engineering, and tech-driven growth. • It shows gaps. Results can reveal inequality between rich and poor countries, or between regions. Caveats • China's score covers only four regions (Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang), as the ...

English version  This blog analyzed the recent statement by Jean Gaspard Ntoutoume Ayi, Member of Parliament for Akanda, on the pension system in Gabon. Here is what we think: What holds up: • The logic of pay-as-you-go is sound: in a pay-as-you-go system, contributions from active workers fund current pensions. Raising pensions without new resources is impossible. • The link between contributions and benefits is real. His CNSS anecdote (contributing on 1.5 million when the actual salary is far higher) describes a genuine problem, the underreporting of salaries, which mechanically lowers pensions. • The criticism of privileges is legitimate: a lifetime pension after a 5 year term, for example, raises a question of fairness, especially if it is financed by the State budget. It is a burden that is too heavy to bear. What is more debatable: • His very categorical claim that pensions are never financed by taxes is too absolute. The State, as employer, pays employer cont...