Firmin Ayessa

Firmin Ayessa (born 2 November 1951) is a Congolese politician who has served in the government of Congo-Brazzaville as Deputy Prime Minister for Civil Service, State Reform, Labour, and Social Security since 2017. As a long-time associate of President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Ayessa has held a series of key posts at the Presidency of Congo-Brazzaville; he was Director of the Civil Cabinet of the President from 1999 to 2002, Deputy Director of the Presidential Cabinet from 2002 to 2007, and he was Director of the Presidential Cabinet from 2007 to 2017.

Ayessa, an ethnic Mbochi, was born in Ondza, located near Makoua in the north of Congo-Brazzaville. A journalist by profession, he studied in France; after returning to Congo-Brazzaville, he worked on radio and television beginning in 1977. He then served as an adviser at the Congolese embassy in Paris from 1980 to 1983, and he was appointed as Director of the Cabinet of the Minister of Communication in 1984. Later, he was Director-General of Audiovisuals. In 1990, he joined the Congolese Labour Party (PCT); he was also elected to the PCT Central Committee in 1990.

Ayessa served as Director of the Congolese Information Agency (ACI) in the early 1990s. He was also editor-in-chief of Aujourd'hui ("Today"), a daily newspaper that described itself as "private and independent of political parties", when it launched on 23 March 1991. The paper launched immediately prior to the opening of the 1991 National Conference, in which the PCT lost power. Later in 1991, Théodore Kiamossi, who had resigned from the PCT, was appointed to replace Ayessa as Director of the ACI; Ayessa was then appointed as Communications Adviser to President Denis Sassou Nguesso. He remained in the latter post until 1992, when Sassou Nguesso was defeated in a multiparty presidential election and left office.

In March 1997, he was elected to the Higher Council for the Freedom of Communication. Sassou Nguesso regained power at the end of the June–October 1997 civil war, and he then appointed Ayessa to the government as Minister for the Organization of the National Forum and Relations with the National Transitional Council, on 2 November 1997. Ayessa was subsequently appointed as Director of the Civil Cabinet of the President, with the rank of Minister-Delegate, on 18 January 1999. He was deputy director of Sassou Nguesso's campaign for the March 2002 presidential election, working under Isidore Mvouba, the campaign director.

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