Image source, 10 Design Architecture
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- Author, Writing
- Author's title, BBC News World
The plan to build a futuristic city in Senegal, devised by the American rapper of Senegalese origin Akon, has been discarded.
Instead, a more realistic project will be carried out, the authorities of the African country reported.
“The Akon City project no longer exists,” Sapco's BBC Sandou, the Sapco director, the Senegal Tourism Development Agency, told the BBC Sando Sapco.
He explained that “fortunately, an agreement between Sapco and businessman Alioune Badara Thiam (aka Akon) has been reached. What is preparing with us is a realistic project, which Sapco will fully support.”
Akon City
Known for his successes in the 2000s, Akon, born in the United States but partially raised in Senegal, announced two ambitious projects in 2018 that, according to him, would represent the future of African society.
The first was Akon City, with an estimated budget of US $ 6,000 million, which would work with the second initiative: a new cryptocurrency called Akoin.
The initial designs of Akon City, with skyscrapers of pronounced curves, were compared to the imposing fictitious city of Wakanda, of the Marvel black panther films and comics.
Image source, 10 Design Architecture
But, after five years of setbacks, the land of 800 hectares in Mbodiène, about 100 km south of the capital, Dakar, remains practically empty.
The only structure is an incomplete reception building. There are no roads, homes or electricity.
“They promised us employment and development,” a local resident to the BBC told. “However, nothing has changed.”
Meanwhile, the Akoin cryptocurrency, owned by the star, has been seen in difficulties to reimburse its investors over the years.
Akon himself admitted: “I was not managing properly; I assume all responsibility.”
It was also questioned if it would be legal for Akoin to function as the main payment method for future Akon City residents.
Senegal uses Franco CFA, regulated and issued by the Central Bank of the States of West Africa (ECB) that, like many central banks, has expressed its opposition to cryptocurrencies.
The drop in the project
The plans for Akon City were ambitious.
Only the first phase contemplated a hospital, a shopping center, a school, a police station, a waste landfill and a solar plant by the end of 2023.
Located on the Atlantic coast of Senegal, Akon's ecological and high -tech city had to work entirely with renewable energy.
But despite Akon's insistence in an interview with the BBC in 2022 that the project advanced “100,000%”, no significant works were carried out after the initial launch ceremony.
Image source, Getty Images
Now, the Senegalese government has confirmed what many suspected: the project had stagnated without the possibility of recovery.
The authorities cited the lack of financing and the paralysis of the works as key reasons for the decision.
Although the Akon City as it was originally conceived, the government states that it is now working with Akon in a more realistic development project for the same place.
The land near Mbodiène still has a great strategic value, especially given the proximity of the 2026 Youth Olympics and the forecast of an increase in tourist activity in the country.
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