Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday his country is investing in Africa without imposing unsustainable debt levels as it has seen contracts worth more than $ 1 billion signed in Dakar, the capital city of Senegal.
The agreements between four American companies and Senegal are billed as part of his country’s approach to help Africa build infrastructure with transparent and sustainable agreements.
Careful not to directly criticize China’s infrastructure projects, which have proliferated across the continent over the past decade, Blinken said during a visit to Nigeria on Friday that international agreements were too often opaque and coercive.
“without burdening the country with a debt that it cannot manage”, he declared during the signing ceremony with Senegalese Minister of Economy Amadou Hott.
He said he was deeply concerned about the stability of neighboring Mali, which has seen two coups d’état in the past 18 months, and that the next elections must follow a timetable set by the ECOWAS regional bloc.
Earlier this month, ECOWAS, West Africa’s main political and economic bloc, imposed sanctions on Malian transitional leaders after advising the organization that they could not hold elections for the presidential and legislatives in February.
“We look forward to resuming all assistance as soon as this democratically elected government takes office,” Blinken told reporters.
Newsway reported in September that the Malian military junta was considering sending a Russian military subcontractor, the Wagner Group, to Mali to help fight a growing Islamist insurgency.
“It would be particularly unfortunate if outside actors would commit to making things even more difficult and complicated and I am thinking in particular of groups like the Wagner group,” said Blinken.