Malians suffer economic hardship after four years of military rule

Four years after the military overthrew Mali’s then-president and took power, many residents say economic problems are worsening and persistent power outages are taking a toll on businesses.

Many are still waiting for their lives to improve after a coup in the troubled West African country in August 2020 sparked by anger at corrupt rulers backed by former colonial power France, a spreading jihadist insurgency and economic hardship.

“There is something wrong with the way they are handling the electricity problem. Many Malians are suffering huge losses,” furniture maker Omar Diarra told Reuters. “The government must make an effort because we are suffering huge losses.”

The 2020 coup in Mali set off a wave of coups in the Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert, including in neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, which are battling jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

Mali’s current military rulers seized power in a second coup in 2021, but they broke their promise to hold elections in February and postponed them indefinitely for technical reasons.

Silversmith Alassane Ag Aghali said the power outages affected all families in Mali. “If the head of a household leaves home in the morning and comes back in the evening without being able to work and bring income to the family, it affects the children, the women and daily life,” he said.

The World Bank said Mali’s economic growth is expected to slow to 3.1 percent this year from 3.5 percent last year, and extreme poverty levels will rise. About 90 percent of the population lives in poverty.

Military leaders in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso also expelled French and United Nations forces that had been involved in fighting Islamist insurgents for a decade and turned instead to Russia for help.

Some residents say they remain hopeful and see the current difficulties as the price of independence from France.

“Political independence without economic independence is meaningless,” said Alkadi Haidara, a resident of the capital, Bamako. “I just hope Malians will be patient because this is part of life. You have to go through hard times before better times come.”

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  Reuters

  Reuters is a news organization founded in 1851 and owned by Thomson Reuters, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. It is one of the world’s largest news agencies, providing financial news and international coverage in more than 16 languages ​​to more than 1,000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters worldwide.