Mauritania: Resignation of first government of Ghazouani era, new PM named

Mauritania has a new Prime Minister. It is Mohamed Ould Bilal, appointed Thursday afternoon, a few hours after the resignation of the government of Ismael Cheikh Sidiya.

This resignation of the first government of the Ghazouani era seems to be the first consequence of the parliamentary report handed over to the Mauritanian judiciary.

The government of Ismael Sheikh Sidiya actually resigned on Thursday, while a report on the excesses of the previous president’s management quotes some of its members. The justice system received the report of the parliamentary investigation commission the same day.

Validated by Parliament last week, the nearly 900-page document presents facts about corruption, the sell-off of state-owned companies and embezzlement in key sectors of the economy such as mining, oil and fishing.

 

The names of the former president and those of several members of his various governments are cited in the report, which is now in the hands of the judges.

The investigations will be carried out by the unit of the Public Prosecutor’s Office responsible for combating financial mismanagement in the wilaya of West Nouakchott.

Judges will have to comb through all the information relating to the alleged misappropriation of national community property contained in the parliamentary commission’s report. The commission worked from January to July. It heard hundreds of personalities who carried out missions under the former president’s leadership.

Among the personalities heard were all former Prime Ministers and former members of the government and other senior public servants. But there were also ministers currently in office, including the Minister of Petroleum and his colleague from Finance, the CEO of the mining company SNIM. All of them charged the former head of state, who refused to respond to a summons from the commission of inquiry.