Exclusive interview with former Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz

Audio 05:00

By: Salem Mejbour

Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz gave RFI his first exclusive interview since his departure from power in August 2019. The former Mauritanian president is at the center of the report of a parliamentary commission of inquiry which revealed a series of financial embezzlements during his management of the country between 2008 and 2019. He completely refutes all the accusations of bad management emanating from this commission made up of its opponents within the Union for the Republic (the ruling party). 

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RFI: How do you feel after this long stay in the premises of the national security ?

Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz: I have no particular problems to raise here. I was called by the central office in charge of economic crimes, I stayed for seven days during which I was interrogated three times for five minutes to ten minutes and that was it. I made a point of not answering these interrogations because I consider that this procedure [is] an illegal procedure which is the reason why I did not really want to collaborate with this Commission of Inquiry. During my stay in fact, I experienced very difficult moments at the outset which were subsequently corrected.

Since your departure from power, there has been this Commission of Inquiry which has been set up - a parliamentary commission of inquiry, and its report has pinned you down in several sectors. The report says that you allowed certain personalities to get rich and that there were contracts awarded illegally?

First of all, what has been raised by this report cannot be a direct responsibility directly affecting the Head of State, even though there have been gaps that have been noted. What I can neither affirm nor confirm ... still it is that all the procedures were followed in the attribution of all the quoted contracts, and therefore we cannot engage the responsibility of the Head of State in the management of the day-to-day affairs of the departments. The statements of some cannot also imply it. The Constitution on this is very clear, article 93 of our Constitution is clear, the Head of State, the President of the Republic cannot be arrested or can only be tried for high treason. Only the High Court can judge him, and only the National Assembly in its absolute majority can accuse him.

In this report it is also said that you allowed your immediate entourage to enrich themselves, certain members of the family were even mentioned and your son-in-law Mohamed Ould Mboussabou?

They quoted it and in any case, it is not us. During ten years of my power, they never stopped attacking my family, day and night, and that was encouraged by all the freedoms that Mauritanians began to live, which Mauritanians began to enjoy and they did not. have stopped accusing my family, my relatives, it's always like that! But it is also the work of malicious people from certain opposition political parties ... it was statements, it was rumors that this Commission, which was first created and set up and to whom we have entrusted the main mission of tainting my person. That is the main mission of this Commission. They have the criminal but it was necessary to look for crimes to accuse this criminal, to confuse him, and that's it, all the members of the Commission are not members who are able to do an honest job, to do a job. seriously, to do transparent work because, taken individually, there is a great deal of criticism that can be made against them.

So we are going to come back to certain points, there was this story of the award of a contract for the construction of a container terminal at the port of Nouakchott, there we said that you allowed certain people around you to benefit from this contract and that this contract in any case was awarded in total violation of the laws of the Republic, in particular the rules governing the award of contracts.

First I see that you are not informed at all because it is not a market, it is a concession that has been duly awarded to a foreign company and which has no monopoly. We gave them a part of the beach, a beach, the opening of the ocean that we have and all the procedures were followed and all the laws were respected and this file was passed several times [in the Council of Ministers ] and each time it has been improved. these are questions of requirement and the law does not provide for asking for such and such an amount. And if we compare with all the concessions of the kind awarded in neighboring countries, it is the most favorable concession, the conditions are most favorable for our country because in some countries, this kind of concession has the monopoly, we attribute to them and at the same time the concession but they also have the monopoly. And that did not happen with us.

And this story of this island which would have been ceded to a former emir of Qatar ?

You say that "  would have  " been ceded, but was not and never was, neither with the intention which is not culpable, nor in my facts [either].

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• Mauritania
• Justice
• Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz