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Thursday, October 23, 2025

Ikemo’s Ntokou Tour Provides School Supplies and Hope

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Open Community Tour in Ntokou

Under a damp morning sky in Ntokou, Cuvette, Deputy Théo Ikemo stepped out of a dusty pickup truck to begin a week of engagement with his constituents, prioritizing social action over rhetoric.

The district’s elected representative brought boxes filled with notebooks and pens, symbolizing a commitment he had expressed during the previous school term: no child in Ntokou should fall behind due to a lack of basic supplies.

School Kits Boost Classroom Readiness

In the courtyard of Lycée Ngakala, teachers lined up class by class as Ikemo handed them packages, urging them to reach the most vulnerable students first.

He told the assembly that improving outcomes starts with morale, and morale, he added, begins with a sharp pencil and a clean sheet of paper.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Primary Education presented last semester, nearly one in five students in the Cuvette department enters the classroom without notebooks, a factor correlated with absenteeism and rising dropout rates after the first term.

By sourcing kits from local traders rather than importing them, Ikemo noted, the initiative injects cash into Ntokou’s small retail network, creating what his aides described as a dual dividend of supporting learning and stimulating the micro-economy.

Roofing Support for District Leadership

Beyond the classrooms, the parliamentarian donated corrugated roofing sheets to renovate the aging residence of the district’s general secretary, a gesture intended, he said, to preserve administrative continuity during the long rainy season that often damages Ntokou’s wooden structures.

New PCT Office Strengthens the Base

Later in the afternoon, drums echoed as red-green banners flew above the freshly painted headquarters of the Congolese Party of Labour, or PCT, which Ikemo chairs locally.

Handing a large silver key to Cuvette’s federal president Jean-Marie Mopombo, the deputy stated that the building now belongs as much to ordinary activists as to officials, a place intended for debate, civic training, and what he called democratic discipline.

Parliamentary Briefing: Hospitals and Reforms

The subsequent community meetings were less festive and more procedural as Ikemo presented a summary of the latest regular session of the National Assembly.

He detailed the legal framework needed to operationalize the newly built general hospitals in Sibiti and Ouesso, emphasizing that medicines and machines alone do not constitute a healthcare system without proper statutes, staff, and budgetary rules.

The government is doing a lot with sometimes very limited means, he reminded participants, arguing that codifying the hospitals’ existence protects both patients and employees for generations to come.

Lawmakers also advanced a bill redefining the National Gendarmerie’s mandate and approved new production-sharing agreements in the oil sector, measures Ikemo said aim to strengthen security and maintain investor confidence in Congo’s main revenue stream.

The two hospitals under discussion—each equipped

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