The Guinea-Mali interconnector is a major regional energy project (Image source: Adobe Stock)

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has announced a 20-month debarment of a Mali-registered company, IYA S.A.R.L, in connection with a flagship cross-border energy transmission project

“An investigation conducted by the Office of Integrity and Anti-Corruption of the African Development Bank Group established that, in the context of the tender for the construction of electricity infrastructure under the Guinea-Mali Electricity Interconnection Project (the PIEGM Project), IYA S.A.R.L. committed a fraudulent practice,” the AfDB said in a statement.

It added that the company now faces a 20-month debarment, with “conditional release, requiring the company to complete an integrity compliance programme.”

During the debarment period, IYA S.A.R.L. and any affiliates will not be eligible to participate in AfDB-financed activities.

IYA S.A.R.L. is a construction company registered in the Republic of Mali.

No other details were released, but the AfDB’s Office of Integrity and Anti-Corruption is responsible for preventing, deterring and investigating allegations of corruption, fraud and other sanctionable practices in group-financed operations.

At the expiry of the debarment period, IYA S.A.R.L. will only be eligible to resume participation in ADB-financed activities upon evidence of satisfactory completion of an integrity compliance programme consistent with the bank’s guidelines.

The PIEGM project is a major cross-border transmission scheme designed to contribute to the reinforcement of electrical energy exchanges between the countries of the West African sub-region and in particular, between Guinea and Mali, and to promote the socio-economic development of both countries through increased access of the population to high-quality, low-cost electricity.

The main project objectives are to increase electricity supply to the eastern part of Guinea, as well as enable electricity trade between Guinea and Mali, and to increase Guinea’s electricity export capability towards other West African Power Pool countries.

The AfDB has debarred half a dozen other companies in recent months across various parts of the continent, citing fraudulent practices, including Tetralink Taylor & Associates East Africa Limited and Malawi’s J&J Construction Company.

Société Malienne de Construction, de Transport et d’Hydrocarbure (SOMACOTH SA), another company registered in Mali, together with its former general manager, Boubacar Bah, was also debarred in December, as well as Yessan Sarlu, registered in Togo, and its general manager, Ayitévi Yao Mawulolo Amadote.

The list also includes Chinese-registered companies, Jiangxi Transportation Engineering Group Limited and Hangzhou Fuchuan Electric Equipment Co., Ltd.

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Totogi has been selected by an Africa-based MVNE to run 30 mobile brands and nearly one million subscribers on a single cloud-native charging platform

Totogi Today has revealed that an Africa-based mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE), supporting around one million subscribers across 30 mobile brands, has chosen Totogi Charging-as-a-Service to manage its entire multi-brand operation on a single cloud-native charging platform

The MVNE oversees a broad mix of prepaid, eSIM, broadband, and value-added mobile services for both consumer and enterprise offerings, all delivered through a unified infrastructure. By adopting Totogi’s pay-as-you-grow, price-per-transaction model, the operator aims to maintain tighter cost control, enable flexible scaling, and simplify the management of multiple brands through one multi-tenant charging environment.

Totogi’s multi-tenant platform introduces a new operating model for the MVNE. Each MVNO brand operates within its own dedicated tenant, with full autonomy to create tariffs, set pricing, and launch promotions, without relying on the MVNE for routine changes. This approach allows brand teams to move faster, while the MVNE retains overarching visibility and governance across the platform. The self-service capability removes much of the operational friction typically associated with supporting multiple MVNOs.

“Running multiple brands on one charging platform is the kind of operational complexity that would paralyse a legacy charging deployment,” said Danielle Rios, CEO of Totogi. “With Charging-as-a-Service on AWS, this MVNE gets elastic scale, instant pricing changes, and the ability to spin up new MVNOs, each with its own separate tenant, without spinning up new infrastructure. Each MVNO controls its own offers; the MVNE manages the platform. This is what modern charging looks like: one platform, 30 brands, a million subscribers, zero change requests.”

The deployment is currently in progress, with full implementation expected to be completed in early 2026.

Ethiopia investing in solar energy

South Africa’s Thabo Consulting Engineering (TCE Africa) and Portugal’s Sun Business Development (Sun BD), have been awarded a contract to provide consultancy services for Ethiopia’s Weranso solar PV project

The contract, worth US$706,790, includes consultancy services for a feasibility study; preparation of an environment and social impact assessment; preparation of a resettlement action plan; and to compile bidding documents for the utility-scale project.

The 100MW Weranso project is being led by the Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) with support from the African Development Bank and will be built in the country’s north-eastern region, near to Djibouti.

It forms part of a broader Ethiopia-Djibouti interconnection initiative and expands on the country’s bold energy production ambitions.

The Ethiopian government is also looking at the construction of another utility-scale solar PV projects, Gad II, also 125MW, as it seeks to further expand its renewables power capacity.

In 2025, the country inaugurated the flagship Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which has an installed hydro capacity of 5,150MW.

The government hopes to raise Ethiopia’s total installed capacity from around 9,750MW currently to 14,000MW by 2030, with a strong focus on solar, hydro, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy sources.

EEP is simultaneously upgrading its transmission and distribution infrastructure, most recently completing a capacity expansion at the 230kV Legetafo substation, which it called “a major milestone in strengthening Ethiopia’s regional power grid.”

A defining feature of the project, it noted in a statement, was its execution by its own maintenance professionals, “demonstrating the strength of in-house technical capacity.”

EEP is also moving forward with the Gimbi-Tulu Kapi transmission and substation project in support of the nation’s mining sector, supplying reliable energy to the Tulu Kapi gold mine.

On the Weranso project, TCE Africa and Sun BD secured their contract against competition from other international consultants, including firms from China, Nigeria and Germany.

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