Scandal: Equatorial Guinea restricts WhatsApp, suspends officials, installs CCTV

The Government of Equatorial Guinea has restricted its citizens from downloading and sharing multimedia files on WhatsApp using mobile data.

This decision follows directives issued to telecommunications companies, instructing them to curb access to inappropriate content.

Additionally, the government has suspended all civil servants found to have engaged in sexual activities within ministry offices.

Another measure was the installation of surveillance cameras in all government offices.

Hundreds of sex tapes involving a high-ranking Equatorial Guinean civil servant with other mens’ wives have done the rounds on social media, prompting the authorities to attempt to curb their spread.

In the videos the married director of the National Financial Investigation Agency (ANIF), Baltasar Ebang Engonga, is seen with various partners – including the wives of prominent officials – at his office in the finance ministry.

On Monday, the country’s vice president Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue announced on X that the government would order the “immediate suspension of all civil servants who have had sexual relations in the offices of the ministries, as this constitutes a flagrant violation of the code of conduct and the law on public ethics.”

It is not the first time that sex tapes involving civil servants have been leaked on social media.

But the affair has blown up to unprecedented proportions due to the notoriety of the officials involved.

Last week, Obiang said that he had given 24 hours’ notice to Equatorial Guinea’s telecommunications ministry, regulator and telephone companies “to curb the distribution of pornographic videos that are flooding social networks in Equatorial Guinea”.

“As the government, we cannot continue to see families destroyed,” said the vice-president in charge of defence and security.

According to accounts first spread by Whatsapp groups and then posted to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X, Engonga shot more than 400 pornographic videos in his office.

Nicknamed “Bello” on account of his good looks, Ebang Engonga is a married father and the son of Baltasar Engonga Edjo, the current Chairman of the Commission of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community.

He is also related to the country’s long-serving president.

The sex tapes were leaked on social networks at a time when he had been remanded in custody at Malabo’s infamous Black Beach prison in a case of embezzlement of public funds, according to state television station TVGE.

Equatorial Guinea’s chief prosecutor Anatolio Nzang Nguema, assured TVGE that if medical examinations revealed that Ebang Engonga was “infected with a sexually transmitted disease” he would be prosecuted for an offence against “public health”.

The flow of internet traffic, and in particular the downloading of images, has been severely disrupted in the country after the authorities took measures to curb the sex tapes’ spread, witnesses told AFP.

Social media is awash with speculation that more videos involving other individuals, both men and women, could be released in the next few days.

In another post on Tuesday, the vice president said the government would install surveillance cameras in all government offices.

“We have taken this measure to ensure compliance with the law on public officials and to eradicate improper and illicit behaviour.”