The Vice President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, has taken to Twitter to share that the country’s internet services could potentially be cut off in the next two weeks as the French Central Bank haven’t yet authorized the payment to the provider.
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Si el Banco Central de Francia no autoriza las transferencias de GITGE a través de BEAC para el pago de la fibra óptica en el país, en dos semanas #GuineaEcuatorial quedará sin internet.
— teddy nguema (@teonguema) August 25, 2022
The Vice-President, on Thursday, met with the Prime Minister, Francisco Pascual Obama Asue, and the Director of the Bank of Central African States in an emergency meeting to ask for explanations.
Regarding the delay and blocking of transfers, the representative of BEAC said that the Heads of State of the Subregion, struggled between devaluing the Franco CFA or protecting the reserve in a meeting in Yaounde in 2016 together with the Central Bank of France, and decided to protect the reserves with a new regulation that came into force in 2019.
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But the doubt of Equatorial Guinea’s Vice-President comes from why legal transfers and with all the regulations in force, such as that of GITGE, can take so long. He was informed that the Central Bank of France creates two lists – a black one that represents the companies that the bank considers not suitable to be treated by BEAC and another white list – which are companies and transfers that can go through.
Apart from slowing down the country’s development activities, it’s also a hindrance to national economic diversification projects, such as tourism and the tech & innovation ecosystem.
El Banco Central de Francia impone politicas monetarias a BEAC que ralentizan el desarrollo de los paises de la CEMAC. Entre miles de ejemplos de G.E, tenemos a Gitge; cuya lentitud de transferencia por su pago al proveedor de la fibra óptica, puede dejar al país sin internet.
— teddy nguema (@teonguema) August 25, 2022
In this regard, the Vice President of the Council of Ministers has spoken with the Prime Minister of the Government to meet with the competent authorities to resolve the situation and to further review the blockades and delayed transfers of funds from Equatorial Guinea to other countries.
Additional reporting courtesy NowEG
