Kibele Toure was at the helm of the Senegalese Railway Company (CFS) for a year and a half. Here in his office on the Quai d’Orsay in 2017 © Cyrille Choupas / JA
After a binational project with Mali failed, this ambitious technocrat close to Macky Sall was appointed head of the Senegal Railway Company. He reached an agreement with the Canadian Trade Corporation to structure a $2 billion investment plan aimed at rebuilding the Senegalese part of the railway axis between the two West African capitals.
President Macky Sall in October 2018 called for the revival of the Dakar-Bamako line, where huge investments had not been made for nearly a century, Kebele Toure – the son of former senator Soti Toure – quickly realized the difficulty of his task.
“In two and a half years, I became the minister of my seventh line in Mali. Government instability and security problems have prevented the project from getting off the right track,” laments this French-trained technocrat who passed through the Quai d’Orsay. Noting the differences in views with the financial side, but also the fundamental disagreement with the World Bank, the financial backer of the project, who wanted the railways to be renewed, and not reconstruction, Senegal left the initiative aside. To focus on updating the municipality its own network.
Either people clear the land or they have to pay