An official Malian document “published by mistake” at the end of 2022 reveals a surge in the expenses of the intelligence services placed under the authority of the president, Assimi Goïta.
by Cyril Bensimon and Morgane the cam
The question has been nagging since the revelation of their arrival on Malian soil in December 2021. Is the private company Wagner which employs mercenaries paid for its support for putschist colonels? And, if that is the case, how are the payments funded?
Even before the deployment of military forces, the men of Evgueni Prigojine, boss of the Russian company, began to prospect in the golden field of which Mali is one of the first producers in Africa. However, their research has so far led to the signing of any mining operating contract, no mine grabbing has been made as in the Central African Republic. Would Wagner work at a loss in Mali, leaving his interventions in the Central African Republic, Libya or Sudan to finance this deployment, considered more strategic insofar as he undermines Western influence, in particular French?
An official Malian document has clearly enlightened several chancelleries. Dated July 30, 2022 and “published by mistake” at the end of the year, according to a Western source, the rectified budget of the National Agency for State Security (Anse), the Malian intelligence services, reveals A surge in the expenses of this structure placed under the direct authority of the President of the Republic, Assimi Goïta, and led by one of the pillars of the junta, Colonel Modibo Koné.
dizzying increase
The authorizations of engagement of the Anse, initially encrypted up to 2 billion CFA francs for 2022 (3 million euros), were thus re -evaluated during the year at 71.4 billion CFA francs (108 million euros). Payment credits, the limit of possible expenditure for the coverage of engagement authorizations, fixed for their part at 13.7 billion CFA francs (21 million euros) were rectified at 103.7 billion CFA francs, a dizzying increase of more than 135 million euros for the year 2022.
“The overlying of budgets at institutions or ministries corresponding to any public expenditure is a common practice as soon as we want to make up for payments”, ensures a convinced diplomatic source, like two other high -ranking interlocutors , that the financing of Russian mercenaries is to be sought in this budget line. A conviction reinforced by the amount of the increase which corresponds, more or less, to the contract of 6 billion CFA francs per month (just over 9 million euros), mentioned in September 2021 by the reuters news agency , when the Malian state was still in negotiation with the group of mercenaries. A sum later confirmed by the American general Stephen Townsend, the commander of Africom.
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