Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has appointed a former bank director as the new prime minister, as per a decree issued nearly three weeks after the previous government stepped down due to being labeled “ineffective.”
At the end of July, Manuela Roka Botey, the first woman to serve as prime minister, resigned from her position at the president’s request, just 18 months after her appointment.
When accepting the resignation, the president highlighted a “collective inability” to address critical issues such as the economy, social cohesion, and the fight against corruption.
In a decree signed on Friday and made public by the presidency, Obiang named Manuel Osa Nsue Nsua as the new prime minister, assigning him the role of overseeing the administrative coordination of the country.
Manuel Osa Nsue Nsua had been the director of the national bank of Equatorial Guinea since 2012.
President Obiang, 82, has been ruling Equatorial Guinea, a small oil-rich former Spanish colony in Africa, for 44 years.
The country is often criticized by the United Nations and various non-governmental organizations for its repression of dissent.
