Senegal will cancel a 32-year water infrastructure deal signed by former President Macky Sall with Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power because of the high cost, the country’s water and sanitation minister said.
A contract to build and operate a desalination plant in the capital Dakar worth $800 million was signed in March in the final days of Sall’s term, Reuters reported.
The project was aimed at reducing water deficits in a country where water withdrawals are expected to rise by up to 60% by 2035, according to the World Bank. The project has been described as the largest of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa, with a production capacity of 400,000 cubic metres per day.
But Minister Cheikh Tidiane Daye said Thursday that the long-term cost made the project a “short-term and expensive solution.”
He added – in a statement to a private television network – that “the price of water will become higher in the long term due to the technology used in its production.”
The minister criticised former President Sall for signing the deal so shortly before the end of his term.
