Government money appears in Touba in advance of President Wade's visit

President Abdoulaye's visit tomorrow to the Mourides' holy city of Touba has been greased by finally funding Touba infrastructure projects. The President needs to spread the goodwill, according to today's article in L'Observateur. The sacking of Macky Sall, leader of the Senegalese parliament is apparently fomenting ill feeling toward the president and the Mourides are backing off from their support for the President... Those sore feelings may be assauged somewhat by the reported payment this month to Chinese contractors working in Touba of 3.6 billion CFA francs. According to L'Observateur sources, 2 billion CFA francs were received by Hénan China and 1.6 billion by another company. Work on Touba infrastructure has been restarted, although Chinese and local employment on the projects is still far below the scheduled need... L'Observateur sources with the Khalife say they'll push for more funding for the projects from the President's central government. As we noted here earlier, Touba sent billions of francs (much of it raised abroad) to the central government, where it disappeared for quite awhile. The Khalife took up the matter in a visit to Dakar earlier this year. Only 30 percent of the contract Touba infrastructure has been completed.