Rabat – Vinci Energies, a French construction company with multiple Moroccan subsidiaries, signed a €292 million (MAD 3.3 billion) contract with Benin to construct electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure in the West African country.
Over the next three years, Vinci will oversee the construction and maintenance of 500 kilometers of extra-high and high-voltage power lines, both overhead and underground. The project also includes more than 1,000 kilometers of low- and medium-voltage distribution networks, and 11 high voltage transformer stations in Benin, reads a Vinci press release.
The three-year contract will employ more than 900 people, who “will benefit from training and transfer of expertise with the support of VINCI Energies’ French and Moroccan subsidiaries,” added the statement.
The project will reach eight of Benin’s twelve administrative divisions and will be launched under Benin’s Programme for Sustainable and Secure Access to Electrical Energy (PADSBEE).
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By contributing to the country’s socio-economic development and supplying several economic and industrial activity zones, Vinci’s project will also help PADSBEE’s efforts to “ensure universal, secure and reliable access to electricity both for the population and for industrial and strategic sites.”
Among the industrial zones that will benefit from the project are an airport, an administrative city, a hospital, and new residential areas.
“In addition to our full mobilisation on the ground to ensure the technical success of this project, we have committed to training 300 young technicians while it is being completed,” explained Arnaud Grison, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of VINCI Energies.
He added: “We are very happy to be embarking upon this collaboration with the Benin authorities and with local communities, which will pave the way for a permanent foothold in Benin and will support the local economy with the jobs created. This is in fact the basis of our companies’ development model.”
In March, Cegelec Maroc, one of the Moroccan subsidiaries of VINCI Energies, won the contract for the technical lots for one of Africa’s tallest towers, in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
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