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Document: Mali is pressed to pay an 'enormous debt' for a regional dam

A letter obtained by reveals that Mali owes over $94 million to an entity which manages a dam, which provides electricity to Senegal, Mauritania and other countries. The debt is "a matter of life or death" to its ability to operate, the letter states.

The funding gap is a warning sign of further electricity supply problems for Mali. Outages have weakened public support in recent years for the military-led government which took power in coups in 2020-2021.

Manantali Dam and Power Plant was installed in 2002 with a capacity of 200 Megawatts. Its production is distributed to Mali, Senegal and Mauritania.

According to a letter sent by SOGEM on April 25 to the director general of Mali's electricity utility, Energie du Mali (Mali), Mali owes SOGEM "an enormous amount" of more than 54 billion CFA francs (94.12 millions) for the management of Manantali, among other projects.

The letter was signed by Mohamed Mahmoud Sid'Elemine, the director general of SOGEM.

Energy du Mali admitted in a Thursday statement that it owed SOGEM 43.8 billion CFA Francs and another 11.9 billion CFA Francs to an entity separate involved in the operation and maintenance of the dam.

When asked why SOGEM had not paid the sums, they said that SOGEM projects - such as other dams – had "experienced substantial delays" which had affected Mali’s energy sector.

It said that the utility "had no choice but to resort to expensive solutions such as leasing generators from private operators" to make up for its expected production shortfall.

The SOGEM letter touts the Manantali Project as a success for regional co-operation that cost hundreds billions of CFA Francs to implement.

Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger were members of the Alliance of Sahel States. They announced their departure from the West African political and economic bloc called ECOWAS last year. $1 = 573.7500 CFA francs (Reporting and writing by Idrissa Singare; Editing and proofreading by Ayen Deng Bior and Aiden Lewis)

(source: Reuters)