The end of the dispute between Dr Cheikh Dieng, former Director General of Onas, and Dr Cheikh Tidiane Dièye, Minister of Water and Sanitation, is not in sight. Accusations are flying from both sides. On the issue of the vehicle registration document, for example, the outgoing CEO of Onas insists that he not only asked for the document bearing his name to be rectified, but also returned the vehicle. ‘As part of the implementation of the ‘Hann Fann collector’ project, you kindly made available to the General Management of the Onas, the vehicle with the registration number AA-364.SQ in the name of the company Synergie Afrique, which is delegated to manage the project on behalf of Onas. This vehicle, acquired as part of the project’s institutional support to Onas, will have to be registered in the name of the Office at the end of the project’s implementation period, after approval by the Ccva. I would ask you to take note of the return of the said vehicle’, reads a document he sent to the CEO of Synergie Afrique. Despite this, the new management of Onas formally denies this information in its press release.

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For Cheikh Dieng, the aim of this press release, commissioned by the Minister of Water and Sanitation, ‘is to set off a counter-fire to make people forget about the essential problem of direct agreement contracts, which we know are always an open door to all forms of corruption’.

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At a press conference last Friday, Cheikh Dieng also accused the Minister of Hydraulics and Sanitation of ‘forcing him to do deals that he refused to sign, i.e. contracts with two companies, Delta and Vigas’. The contract was awarded by direct agreement for the maintenance and cleaning of rainwater drainage works in Dakar and the regions. Lot 1, awarded to Vigas, is worth more than 260 million CFA francs and involves cleaning the Ep canals and combined secondary networks in the Dakar region. Delta Sa, meanwhile, is to clean Ep canals and combined secondary sewer networks in the Podor, Mbour, Joal, Diourbel, Touba, Mbacké and Matam regions, at a cost of more than 174 million 887 thousand CFA francs. This point was glossed over by Onas in its press release.

By Dialigué FAYE / dialigue@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH