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‘Senegal is most conducive African country for foreign investments’
Wednesday, 09 March 2011 00:59
The News - Serigne Aramine Mbacke is both Special Adviser to President Abdoulaye Wade on Foreign Investments and Director
-General of Dangote Industries Senegal. In Dakar, the 42-year-old aide spoke with Nigerian journalists on the impact of Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s $1 billion investment in Senegal and his own mandate to attract investors to the country. Senegal, he says, is the most conducive African country for foreign investments. The News’ TAYO ODUNLAMI reports.Dangote Is A Trusted Investor
You are wearing two caps here - Special Adviser to President Abdoulaye Wade on Foreign Investments and Director-General of Dangote Industries, Senegal. How has one office driven the other?
Let me first say I came across Alhaji Aliko Dangote through my brother. They were in the United States together and he made it possible to provide the facility for Dangote here in Senegal. I was also in the USA. About five, six months ago, I came back home to Senegal and became Director-General of Dangote Industries, Senegal. Recently the president appointed me as his Special Adviser on Foreign Investments.
I have found Alhaji Aliko to be a reliable investor. You can always trust him on whatever he says. Now, as Special Adviser to the president, I am working with Dangote to help make his investment a flawless reality. He is a wonderful man.
Beyond the Dangote investment, how, generally, have you been attracting foreign investments into Senegal?
Before the president officially appointed me as his S.A on Foreign Investment, I have been doing the job, organising people from Europe, from America into Senegal. The president knew what I was doing and he loved that.
How many foreign investments have you been able to attract to Senegal?
The main project we are working on now is Dangote. There is cement, there is sugar, everything is worth about $1billion. Now, we are working on the cement project, which is worth about $500 million.
What are the investment opportunities here in Senegal? And what are the attractions?
Senegal is a very stable country. And the president has very dedicated people here to help investors. The economy is good, the president is a peaceful man. Here we have phosphate, we have fish, we have agriculture. The president is focusing on developing the country as a whole. He would like us to be like the USA but he doesn’t have the money and that’s why he’s trying to bring in investors from other places.
And there are attractive incentives. When Alhaji Dangote came here, he was possibly given free land, about 800 hectares. He is enjoying reduction on duty payment on importation of equipment from Europe; he is paying about 2.5 per cent when he should be paying fully 4.4 per cent. For investors, there is also a holiday of up to five years before they start paying tax.
What are the investment areas of concentration for the president? There is telecommunication, there is agriculture…
There is increasing demand for telecommunication now. Ever since we began, there has been a very high demand for telecommunication. But the president is focusing on agricultural development. He is doing hundreds of programmes for people to focus on the agricultural sector. The land is there, the water is there and Senegal is easily accessible to Europe and America for imports, exports, for business co-operation. Senegal is not far from anywhere. It’s seven hours from the United States, five hours from France, five hours from Spain.
Apart from Dangote, are you looking at any other Nigerian company for investment purposes?
We welcome every willing investor. We are asking Nigerian investors to come forward and exploit the political stability, the friendly investment climate and the good and honest leadership that Senegal offers. Do you know that we didn’t go looking for Dangote to come and invest in Senegal? It was Dangote himself who came forward to say he wanted to invest in Senegal. And we are very happy about it. Dangote is the first 100 per cent African company to invest in Senegal, and it is the biggest wholly African foreign investor here.
And how has Dangote Industries fared so far in this pioneering investment profile?
I’m very impressed, I’m very impressed. He’s excellent. Dangote is a very remarkable man and a reliable businessman to work with. He’s already providing employment for hundreds of Senegalese and we’re looking forward to the second leg of his investment here, which is the sugar factory, to take off. Dangote is a fantastic investor and business partner and is a big blessing to Africa. Right now, here, we have about 3,000 employment applications to attend to and we are only 16 million people.
Are there other key areas of resources that are begging to be exploited?
Yes, we have gold in commercial quantity, lots of gold. We have a company that is mining gold and it’s in its second year of operations right now. We have just found some oil and we are working it out to see how we will have investors to partner Senegal in exploration and prospecting. There are also fishes. Senegal has more fish now than any other African country and we will gladly welcome investors to invest in this area. There was a Japanese company that was doing that here before but we had to throw them out because there were lots of problems with them. We also have phosphate in large quantity and we are doing some exporting to China.
There is a major challenge here accessing water. How does this affect industrial and agricultural investments and what are you doing about irrigation to ease the problem?
We are really looking at this and the government is working on the irrigation issues since we’re even into rice farming and government is focusing on agricultural development generally. We’re working at bringing people from overseas to help us on this area. We’re working it out. Part of it is giving Dangote Industries about 40,000 hectares of land for its sugar project. And in the process, we expect him to partner with us on the irrigation challenge.
What about power? How steady is power supply here?
We have problems on power supply here, although it’s not as worse as what you have in Nigeria. But I believe that Dangote is coming in now, he is expected to help the president to solve the problem. He is expected to do what he is doing in Obajana Cement Plant in Nigeria, for example, generating independent power at the site and sharing it to neighbouring communities. He is going to do that at the site over here and will share to the neighbouring communities. But even that, we are working on how we will be doing it on our own for the whole country, building a big plant, using it for the entire country and selling it to neighbouring countries like Mali and Gambia. Mali doesn’t really have a problem there but Gambia has a lot of problems about it. Even Guinea Bissau, they have the same problem. The problem is all over Africa. Africa has a lot of problem with power.
Senegal used to be a name in tourism some years ago but it is a silent feature now. What happened?
The business is down now, I must tell you the truth. Not like what it was 10 years ago. We have not been advertising. Then we were really advertising, we were telling people overseas where to go here. For years we had no airline. Now we have an airline, Senegal Airline, for about a year now. We are gradually reviving our tourism industry and we will soon get there.
You have this horse or donkey cart as a means of transportation here. Are you looking at stopping this means of transportation?
No no no. we are proud of it. It is good for transporting. I am thinking of introducing it to Nigeria. I came to Lagos and I saw the traffic, heavy traffic but I saw no horse. I asked people around why. Then I told someone I’m going to Lagos and I will bring a horse or donkey and I will introduce this transportation. I am serious.
People are using it everywhere in Africa. You can load your cargo on it and take it to the railway station. It takes care of about 15 per cent of the transportation system we have. It conveys people and merchandise to the markets effectively.
Is there any investment idea you are working on that you expect to take off very soon?
Yes, I’m bringing in a company from the USA to be recycling waste. This project will provide money for scavengers because the recycling company will be buying waste – cans, plastic, metal etc. – that the scavengers will be collecting from all over the country. The project will keep the country neat as well as provide jobs and money for people who could otherwise have remained jobless. It is a very good investment. Do you have such a project in Nigeria? The Lagos Waste Management Authority is generating revenue from waste. But is it paying the refuse collectors for supplying the waste, the raw material? That is what we will be doing here, putting money in people’s pockets.
Photo: Serigne Aramine Mbacke
Source:http://thenewsafrica.com
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