SOMELEC Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

As part of its Accelerated Growth and Shared Prosperity Strategy (SCAPP), the Mauritanian Government has initiated a profound change in the electricity sector. The access rate to electricity is currently low (48%), with significant disparities between urban (89%) and rural (6%) areas, constituting a brake on the country’s economic development dynamic.

A new Electricity Code was adopted in 2022. At the same time, a major restructuring of SOMELEC, the public electricity operator, has begun. This reform materialized in January 2024 with the adoption of a decree establishing the separation and subsidiarization of Production-Transport, Distribution-Commercialization and Rural Electrification activities within a period of 6 months (January – July 2024). SOMELEC currently has nearly 400,000 subscribers in around sixty cities and several hundred localities across the country.

This reform is an opportunity for SOMELEC to overhaul its organizational framework and improve its performance. These improvements will not only help increasing the access rate, securing supply, strengthening the quality of service, reducing costs but also strengthening the credibility of SOMELEC as a future buyer of electricity with private sector players.

PHOENIX supports SOMELEC in the preparation of a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The PIP concerns both business functions (Production, Transport, Distribution, Marketing) and support functions (HR, accounting, finance, purchasing, etc.). A multi-disciplinary team is mobilized to review all of the company’s functions, identify its strengths and weaknesses and propose an action plan accompanied by continuous evaluation indicators.