Mauritania
Privatisation of Mauritanian power supplier underway

afrol News, 21 March - The privatisation of Mauritania's national power and water company (SOMELEC), is moving ahead. According to official sources, four international companies are bidding for the purchase of the 51 percent interest in the national power supplying company.

The state-owned electricity and water utility, Socíeté Mauritanienne d'Electricité (SOMELEC), was bound for privatisation due to Mauritania's close cooperation with the IMF and the World Bank. The government promised the IMF as late as October that the privatisation of SOMELEC would "be completed by end-April 2002." 

According to reports from the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, four international companies have submitted their tenders to take over the lucrative state-owned company. SOMELEC still has a monopoly situation, which will be hard for other possible future investors to break. 

According to these official sources, the four bidders are the Spanish company Unión Fenosa, the Moroccan National Electricity Office (ONE), Anglo American and Vivendi, locally associated to the Mauritanian multimillionaire Abdallah Ould N'Gueide. 

The four companies were shortlisted to take part in the bidding late last year. The Mauritanian government now is to decide on which tender is most fitted to comply with national demands by 30 April. 

The African news agency PANA reports that, according to a well informed source, "the Moroccan and Spanish companies are best placed to win the bid." A special commission, headed by the Mauritanian Finance Minister, last year however pre-selected ONE, the Moroccan bidder, and specially congratulated the company for the "quality and pertinence" of its documents.

The privatisation of SOMELEC is one of the main demands of the structural reforms introduced by the IMF. The UN agency has been persistent in demanding that developing countries engaged in IMF programmes privatise state-owned electricity and water utilities. In several countries, this has led to sharp increases of water and electricity prices and to an end to government aims of providing these basic services to the entire population as they were no longer affordable.

In various countries, including Ghana and South Africa, such privatisations have led to popular protests after international companies inflated prices. The Mauritanian government plan to connect 75 percent of households with electricity "within a reasonable period" has already been moderated to the condition of "maintaining financial, technical and social balance" at SOMELEC. These preconditions obviously did not scare off international bidders. 

Sources: Based on Mauritanian govt, press reports and afrol archives 

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