Resigned and Reappointed the Same Day

Mauritania’s prime minister, Mokhtar Ould Djay, presented his government’s resignation to President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani at the presidential palace on Friday, 9 October, the official news agency, AMI, reported. Later that day the presidency announced a decree naming him prime minister again, and Ghazouani asked him to form a new government. The resignation followed a report on two electricity substation fires that the president received on Thursday, Arab News reported.

What the inquiry found

The fires broke out less than 24 hours apart, on 21 and 22 August, at transformer substations belonging to the state electricity company, Somelec, in Nouakchott and its suburbs. The outages hit large parts of the capital and the towns of Ouad Naga, Idini and Aouleigat, and lasted three to five days, Arab News reported. Somelec announced full restoration at both substations after about five days of repairs.

The independent commission’s executive summary, published by AMI, says it found a direct link between the fires and new 33 kV lines brought into service at the two substations on 15 and 20 August. It could not establish with certainty what set them off. Its most likely scenario is heating at the contact between a cable’s metal screen and its earthing braid, and it found nothing to show a deliberate act or a wrong manoeuvre. Arab News and Sahara Reporters summarised this as overheating with no sabotage or operational error, and quoted the commission as finding “serious shortcomings regarding prevention, electrical protection, work supervision and emergency management.”

Anadolu Agency reported that the commission blamed electrical connectors that did not meet required technical standards and had been imported by a private company. The executive summary does not put it that way. It finds that the contractor, CTM Bâtiments, changed the cable’s manufacturer and specifications and delivered cable that did not conform to its contract, and it lists failings at the Energy Ministry, including by the minister, at Somelec, including by its current and former directors general, and by the supervising engineer, IRAF. This publication has read the summary, not any fuller annexes.

Who answers for it

Ould Djay said in his resignation statement, carried by AMI, that he had led the government since 2 August 2024, and that any shortcomings were his responsibility. Arab News and Sahara Reporters said he was appointed at the start of Ghazouani’s second term and was the president’s third prime minister. Anadolu said he had previously been head of the presidential office and economy and finance minister.

A government’s resignation is the formal way for a cabinet to take responsibility, and here it was followed almost at once by the reappointment of the man who led it. The same prime minister now assembles the next cabinet. None of the sources says who will be in it or whether any Energy Ministry official will be moved. The commission recommended that Somelec suspend payments under the contractor’s contract and move to terminate it, and that a disputed reference document in its bid be sent to the judicial authorities.

That leaves the practical test where the report put it. The commission found failings in how the contract was awarded and supervised and in fire prevention, and it assigned them to named posts at the ministry, the utility and the contractors. The new cabinet’s composition will show whether the accountability the resignation implies reaches the people who did that work.

Sources

The resignation, the decree, the request to form a government and Ould Djay’s statement are from AMI. The commission’s findings on cause, the contractor, the responsibilities and the recommendations are from its executive summary, published by AMI. The president’s receipt of the report, the dates of the fires, the areas affected, the quoted findings and Ould Djay’s appointment are from Arab News, with the same findings in Sahara Reporters. The connectors account and Ould Djay’s earlier posts are from Anadolu Agency. The remarks about what the sources do not say are this publication’s.