Formerly demonised and attributed to Karim Wade, DPW is today praised by top authorities for its "competence, efficiency and expertise". Reviewing DP World's history, the daily Enquête reports that in 2008, Abdoulaye Wade's regime entrusted the Emirati company, Dubai Port World, with the container terminal of the Autonomous Port of Dakar, despite initial outcry over the ousting of French company Bolloré. In 2012, Macky Sall arrived and almost undermined everything. Under former Minister of Justice Aminata Touré and her special prosecutor Alioune Ndao, the company was included in the more than 600 billion CFA francs in assets attributed to former Minister of State Karim Wade. It took intense negotiations between Dakar, Paris and Dubai for the state to finally withdraw DPW from the case. In order to preserve its image, the regime finally settled on the payment of the "remaining entry ticket". This was estimated at 54.6 billion CFA francs, of which a first tranche of 30 billion was paid on entry. The remainder, as the port authorities claimed at the time, was the amount agreed to participate in DPW Dakar's capital, at 10%. Eight years later, the Emirati was not only reinforced, but strengthened with the Port of the Future project. This time, with no fuss!

After several years of negotiations with its Dubai partner, and preliminary studies, the work on the port of Ndayane was launched yesterday, Monday, with the laying of the first stone by President Macky Sall and the CEO of DPW Ahmed Ben Soulayem. This new state-of-the-art port infrastructure will be built on an area of 1200ha. For a total cost of 3000 billion CFA francs, the construction will be carried out in two phases. The first phase will consist of a container terminal on 300 ha and a navigation channel on 5 km and 840 m for a depth of 18 meters of draft. Thus, it will be able to accomodate large ships of 336 m in length and Post-Panamax. This first phase will cost 448 billion CFA francs. With this new port, Senegal intends to position itself as a new maritime hub in West Africa with capacities that will be increased to more than one million containers per year.

The Head of State yesterday presided over the ceremony to launch the works of the multifunctional port of Ndayane. This 837 million dollar project, in its first phase, will meet three challenges: "to decongest the port of Dakar and its surroundings. Secondly, it will give a new impetus to the strategic place that our country occupies on international maritime traffic routes. Above all, the freight of goods is constantly increasing on a global scale. Thirdly and finally, to better respond to our ambitions for an emerging Senegal in the fields of logistics and maritime freight, which determine the country's competitiveness," explained Macky Sall.