English Language Assistance Services Gabon

In the spotlight
First announced almost triumphantly on public telelivision on Friday, September 11th, 2015 as one of the senior ministers of the reshuffled Ona Ondo government, the high profile opposition leader, Jean de Dieu Moukagni Iwangou bounced back on Saturday morning with a press conference to put the record straight.
What seemed like a big catch by the government turned out to be a botched up job. It created quite a stir on both sides of Gabon’s political divide with accusations and recriminations of cheap political practices driven by money and flawed morality.
There was a hard feeling that members of the opposition are too easily bought by the government. The word treason wasn’t actually uttered but it was in the air and many felt the game was no longer worth playing as it had seemingly been given away.
Now that the storm in the tea cup has gone by, what is o be made of all this? True, the knives have been put back in the sheaves, but, in this shadow-boxing, there’s still a long way to go before dust settles and trust returns.

Small surprises for an interpreter
It was quite a busy day with a series of meetings at three venues.
First at the DGH in the morning, next in the Minister’s office at the Ministry of Petroleum n early afternoon, then at the Presidential Palace in President OMAR Bongo’s office in mid-afternoon. As I walked into his office, tagging behind Marathon’s delegation, the President took exception at my presence and he voiced calmly his displeasure: “You bring me folks in here.”
At this comment, Marathon’s Government Relations Manager defended me and soothed:” He’s with us”.
This incident put paid to the planned seating arrangement which requires the interpreter to sit as close as possible to the speaker he is assigned to. The President’s interpreter sat next to Marathon’s Vice-President but I didn’t sit next to the President. Instead I sat next to the Vice-President feet away from the President, who spoke particularly softly that day, most probably from the exhaustion of the hectic activity he had had earlier In the day with the inauguration of the methanol plant in EG where all the Heads of States of Central Africa were in attendance.
Despite the discomfort he had put me in; it was quite a pleasure interpreting for the President who demonstrated his famed astuteness with some smart comments which had the rest of us groping for our calculators in search for the appropriate response.
Commenting on the pecking order of Gabon oil operators, he wondered why Marathon didn’t go for the number one spot.
Later in the meeting, he wondered how much were worth American oil operators in Gabon. This issue was not addressed at the preparatory meeting at the Ministry. Smiling, he seemed to enjoy the stir his question had caused. No credible answer would be given at the meeting.
In the aftermath of the meeting, there was going to be an active exchange of emails and phone calls and it was hoped that the Ministry would provide the President with the appropriate numbers.
On taking leave of the President, there was another small incident with the Minister pressing me to move on, while the President was profusely shaking my hand and musing on my name. I didn’t get it. Finally, as we were walking out of Omar Bongo’s office, Marathon’s Government Relations Manager commented there was a great opportunity of one-upmanship there. Apparently, I should have briefly shared with the President some of my career highlights for my name had seemed to have rung a bell.

You can buy almost anything in Mont-Bouet, except experience.

What if the Ogooue river was to dry up ?
How would Gabon fare?
Would we just moan?
How many would stand up to give a helping hand?
Where would the millions of gallons of water come from?
Would that be enough?

This article from Ghana Intergraphic underscores how widespread corruption is in Africa. Solving this problem will require a continent-wide approach with regular cross-country exchanges from actors of all walks of life.
The question is: Is there such a resolve and where do we start from? We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The way forward is to join forces and take advantage of other regions’ experience of fighting corruption.
Today, Britain is a model of democracy with transparent and uncontested elections. This wasn’t the case at the time o fthe rotten boroughs when the electoral process was clearly flawed.
Your thoughts and comments on corruption are most welcome.
Source: Intergraphic News
Era Of Corruption In Ghana...Do You Think Our Leaders Will Ever Learn To Do The Right Things??
Weeks after the New Patriotic Party (NPP) alleged that Ghana's voters register is bloated with names of Togolese; the Danquah Institute is also claiming that the register has over two million ghost names.

According to the institute, some of the pictures in the nation's voters' register have defects, which suggest that the Electoral Commission's database has been 'tampered with.'

Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Thursday, the Executive Director of the Institute, Nana Attobrah Quaicoe said, the only reason for the defected pictures is that, the Electoral Commission's (EC) database has been compromised.

'These pictures as I have already stated were not captured in a live environment but were rather scanned in the database of the EC, it is criminality, pure and simple.

There is no way you can use a camera to capture an image and when you want to print it out you begin to see pinks on it. Its impossible.' '…these are ghost names, and we estimate up to two million ghost names of all sorts on the register.'

The Executive Director argued that 'we call them ghosts because if they are eligible to register, they would simply have done it in a normal way like the rest of us. They would appear in a live environment, be captured and be processed like you and I who have valid voters register.

Otherwise their appearance in the electoral row when they have images that have staples on them can only suggest that they don't exist as human beings.'

Nana Attobrah Quaicoe said, that during processes towards the 2012 election, grave concerns were raised over the lack of transparency in the biometric process but the EC ignored them.

'The source code to access the database was only known to the vender STL and the EC, no political party had access to the source code for the software.

Now the presence of these scanned pictures you are seeing offers more than sufficient, substantial, irrefutable that Ghana's voters register and the whole EC's data system as currently manned has been irredeemably compromised.'

How do fyou actor in risk in your work? Ever interpreted on top of a cement silo?
This happened to me during the negotiations for the privatization of Les Ciments du Gabon.
Not much fun with the Technical Director and the plant manager pacing up and down. At the end of the exercise, I wondered whether these discussions couldn’t have been carried out me more comfortably in the data room.
Scancem’s Technical Director had come to inspect the cement plant in Franceville as part of the effort to fine tune their evaluation of the outfit and therefore make an appropriate bid. The other competitors included Cemex, and Lafarge. When Lafarge backed out of the process, there remained the flamboyant Cemex and the lean Scancem.
The previous day, together with the whole Scancem delegation we had a near miss when our vehicle almost rolled over on our way up to the canyon. For a couple of minutes, all talking ceased. When the vehicle stabilized, some of us gave a sigh of relief in silence. Later in the evening, in the safety of the Leconi Palace we laughed about the incident and shared what thoughts we had during those short but dramatic moments of uncertainty and fear.
The driver apologized profusely but was not quite forgiven for an accident that was sure to the headlines in the local and national press. It’s quite a feat how we avoided the spotlight at the next visit.

anglais et Anglais
Cérémonie de Signature du CEPP Mondah Bay
Avant de passer au cocktail, le diplomate américain convié à la cérémonie s’est approché de l’interprète pour lui présenter ses félicitations et ses encouragements. Il a, toutefois, relevé que « Gabon is nobody’s preserve » passerait tout aussi bien et peut être mieux que l’expression imagée, « Gabon is nobody’s hunting grounds » pour rendre le cliché, « Le Gabon n’est la chasse gardée de personne. »

English Language Assistance Services Gabon Assistance en anglais (apprentissage de la langue, traduction, orale et écrite, mines et pétrole, etc... )