Borough 5 : Ouenzé

Municipality 5 Ouenzé is bound by Avenue Bouéta Mbongo which separates it from the surroundings of the Tsieme and River Madoukoutsékélé right to the Pointe Hollandaise. After River Mikalou, the Avenue du 5 Février has its borders with Municipality 7 Mfilou, whereas Avenue de la Tsiémé as well as Avenue de l’Intendance share boundaries borders with Municipality 6 Talangaï from the Mikalou bridge to the extension of the Avenue du Port (the present Avenue Edith Lucie BONGO ONDIMBA) to end at the la Pointe Hollandaise passing through SIAT which is part of Poto-Poto.

The last special administrative census of 2012 evaluated the population of Ouenzé at 162.608 inhabitants.

As for health facilities, Municipality 5 Ouenzé has one Integrated Health Centre: CSI Jane Vial, one Screening Centre, Ex Adventiste placed under Clinique Albert LEYONO which is the only big reference health facility.

As for government education, Ouenzé has three high schools one of which is of general education (Lycée de la Révolution), and two of technical education (Lycée Industriel and Lycée Commercial 5 Février 1979), four general education colleges, two Technical education colleges and eight primary schools.

Ouenzé has one Municipality Police Station, two Quarter Police Stations and one gendarmerie brigade.

It is worth mentioning that this Municipality has two government markets: Ouenzé (Mampassi) and Sukissa ( Moukondo).

Contact
Administrator-Mayor : M. Marcel GANONGO
Secretary General : M. Guy Parfait BOUMAKANI

Ouenzé Mayor’s office
50-53 de l’Avenue des 3 Martyr, Ouenze
Brazzaville, Republic of Congo

Historical background

Around 1930, Ouenzé was just a vast savannah extending from the left bank of River Madoukoutsékélé to the right bank of River Tsiémé. There were only four small villages inhabited by the Batékés who had come from the country side. These villages were: Mouléké, Ntsalinguelé, Loulengo (or Moulembo) and Mbemba.

At that time Brazzaville had only 3 municipalities: Makélékélé, Poto-poto and Bacongo.

Ouenzé was created by decree N°59/118 of 2 July 1959 which laid down, at the time, common law civil status centres. According to this decree, Ouenzé was part of the former Moungali-Ouenzé municipality. It is from the 3 November 1959 that the Ouenzé Civil Status centre would be open to the public in conformity with municipal order N °167/M of 23 October 1959.

The origin of the name «Ouenzé » is not clear. The above-mentioned decree attributes it to the river bearing its name which crosses the municipality from North to South. Meanwhile, this river is also called Madoukoutsékélé.

Another more plausible version reveals that this municipality had a market for indigenes whose traders came mainly from the Democratic republic of Congo and had erected huts with red zinc sheets. The name « Ouénzé –mandzandza » was then given to this market, Ouénzé which means market in Swahili and Mandzandza which means zinc sheets in Lingala. This versions sounds more credible for there is today at the same place, a quarter called Ouénzé-Mandzandza, even though the old huts with red zinc sheets have been replaced by modern houses.

Administrative setup

Ouenzé Municipality 4 Moungali has 10 quarters, 41 zones and 554 blocks:

Administrative services

Ouenzé mayor’s office has 2 Municipal Services namely, the service for regulation and the service for administration and personnel to which is added the following devolved State services:

• Service for Urban Affairs
• Service for land registry
• Constituency for State property
• Service for Hygiene
• Service for Cultural Affairs
• Service for Immigration
• Constituency for Social Action
• Sectorial Inspectorate for Sports and Physical Education
• Sectorial Inspectorate Youth and Social Education Infrastructure.

Synoptic table of Administrators