Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
Statue casts shadow over Senegal Renaissance
Far from being a shining beacon of hope for the world’s poorest continent, Dakar’s monument to the African Renaissance has sparked a storm of criticism over Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and his handling of the project.
Declaring himself to be the “intellectual owner” of the bronze family of man, woman and infant – at 50 metres tall just higher than New York’s Statue of Liberty – Wade has decided that he should take a 35 percent cut in the revenues of a site which is expected to be one of Dakar’s top tourist draws when it is completed in December.
Wade - who has long stalked the world stage reminding the rich to make good on pledges of aid to the poor -insists his share would go to a variety of good causes he sponsors rather his own pocket. But for many Senegalese, the affair has left a bad taste. “I have never seen a president being in a business deal with the same state of which he is the highest representative,” said Ousmane Sow, a high school teacher in the capital.
Wade supporters disagree, arguing that he had already drawn sketches for the monument in a book, “A Destiny For Africa”, which he wrote in his early political career.
But others complain it is the latest in a line of glamour projects – including plans for West Africa’s biggest theatre or a four-lane corniche serving Dakar’s wealthy suburbs – that Wade has favoured over urgently needed basic infrastructure.
Bringing aid and being a target
Posted by George Fominyen, AlertNet‘s humanitarian affairs correspondent for West and Central Africa, based in Dakar. He is also West Africa coordinator for Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Emergency Information Service.
The abduction of two Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) workers in Chad this month after a robbery at their compound near Sudan’s Darfur region has again brought to the fore the question of attacks on aid workers.
