It looks like Senegal has officially abandoned its plans to develop a new city with help from Akon.
The singer announced his ambition to build a city in his native country, which would use his own cryptocurrency Akoin, in the summer of 2018.
For a while, it looked like things were going ahead as planned. In January 2020, it was reported that the deal had been rubber-stamped by the nation’s state-owned SAPCO tourism company, and that a “10-year building block” schedule had been put in place.
Akon also told Nick Cannon, in the interview below, that the first wave of construction commenced in March 2019 and that phase two of the plan would begin in 2025.
Now though, it looks like the project has been scrapped, as Senegal has shared a statement offering an update on the situation.
Speaking to the BBC, Serigne Mamadou Mboup, the head of Senegal’s tourism development body, Sapco, said: “The Akon City project no longer exists.”
“Fortunately, an agreement has been reached between Sapco and the entrepreneur Alioune Badara Thiam [aka Akon]. What he’s preparing with us is a realistic project, which Sapco will fully support.”
The original plans stated that the whole project would include a hospital, a shopping mall, a school, a police station, a waste centre, and a solar plant – amounting to around $6billion (£4.4billion).
The reason why Senegal was chosen by Akon is that the singer lived there until he was seven, before moving to New Jersey with his family.
He said it was part of his philanthropic efforts to develop a sustainable city. “If you can have a billion dollars sitting in the bank, while you have all these people suffering, it’s crazy to me,” he said at the time. “It’s like a waste of a billion dollars.”
As highlighted by Stereogum, the cryptocurrency called “Akoin” is also taking a dive.
Over the years, the cryptocurrency has struggled to repay its investors, according to the outlet, and Akon shared a statement in 2022 where he admitted: “It wasn’t being managed properly — I take full responsibility for that.”
Back in 2019, the artist told NME that he plans on running for US President at some point, but talked himself out of the 2020 campaign.
“Now that’s something I’m definitely going to attempt to do before I retire,” he said. “I got this close [squeezes fingers together] to running for President in 2020, but then I thought about it and said, ‘Well, if I run now I would never be able to do music again freely.’
“Before I say goodbye to music, I’ve just got to come back into the game and have as much fun as I possibly can and get it out.”
The post Senegal has officially abandoned plans for Akon City appeared first on NME.
Leave a comment