In the turmoil of a national scene shaken by successive revelations from the Cour des comptes, one name comes to upset certainties and shake convictions: that of Cheikh Ould Bedda, former Director-General of the Société Mauritanienne d’Électricité (SOMELEC).
A name that many associate with rigor, discretion and a demanding conception of public service. His mention in the Court of Auditors’ report had the effect of a silent earthquake — a moral shock in a society already undermined by distrust and weariness.
Because he is not just any manager: Cheikh Ould Bedda symbolizes that rare breed of executives whose loyalty is not for sale, whose conscience takes precedence over privilege.
He embodies a professional rigor without ostentation, a serene integrity, foreign to collusion and vested-interest games.
A Man Who Became the Victim of the System He Wanted to Clean Up
Testimonies abound: under his leadership, SOMELEC had committed itself to a process of rationalisation, disturbing those who had made disorder their management model.
He dared to tackle opaque privileges, cutting back kick-back circuits and inflated contracts.
He refused to endorse rigged tenders, ended patronage recruitment, enforced expenditure traceability and instituted a culture of internal control.
All these measures, in an environment mined by the habit of collusion, amounted to declaring war on an established order.
But the question remains: is it really worth addressing system failures when those who do so are mercilessly taken down by the worst corrupt?
This question is not rhetorical — it is posed by facts.
Several managers known for their integrity have seen their fight distorted, tarnished, then turned against them by those who orbit power circles, sometimes under the very cloak of proximity to the president.
But let no one be mistaken — sooner or later, these shadow-workers will pay the price of their cowardly business; their manoeuvres will be tracked down, exposed and sanctioned, and history will remember those who, by cunning and slander, sought to silence the truth.
Thus, the fight against corruption, when it targets good-willed people rather than true predators, ceases to be a moral reform and becomes an instrument for neutralising merit and courage.
The Paradox of a Wealthy Country Living Poorly
How can we explain that a country so rich in natural resources — gas, iron, gold, fish, copper — can still beg for international aid to feed its children or educate its youth?
How can we justify that a water well or a classroom become charitable acts, whereas they should fall under the normal functioning of the State?
This painful paradox does not reflect a lack of means, but a governance failure, a deep gap between the riches of the land and the poverty of the citizen.
In this context, the fight against corruption has become the great national redemption narrative — a project both moral and political, supposed to restore trust and justice. But a narrative poorly conducted can also turn against its own legitimacy.
A Just War Is Not Enough: The Method Matters
No one disputes that President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani had the courage to launch a crusade against corruption, breaking with past complacency.
But this war, to be credible, must rely on a clear legal and moral architecture, and not on the tendency to hand someone over to popular vindictiveness.
Yet, instead of first striking the large networks of illicit enrichment, the control apparatus seems to have focused on management errors, often due to structural dysfunctions rather than fraudulent intent.
The real predators, meanwhile, know the rules of camouflage:
they dress crime in accounting arguments,
disguise fraud as procedure,
and turn corruption into apparent respect for legality.
No audit report, however complete, can unmask those sophisticated crimes.
The only response commensurate with the scourge would be to implement an effective “Where did you get your fortune?” approach, coupled with systematic seizure of suspected assets, both domestically and abroad, via diplomatic and judicial international channels.
Selective Transparency: The Forgotten Years
It would also have been necessary for the government to publish the Court of Auditors’ reports for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021, covering the beginning of the current mandate.
These years are part of the current president’s term, which need to be purged of the corrupt in order to establish a principle of equality in accountability.
So far, no explanation has been provided for the absence of these reports, prompting us to ask:
Were these years truly free of corruption? — It’s utopian to believe so.
Or did their managers simply benefit from luck? — That’s not true: justice will eventually find them, wherever they hide.
Or has political logic dictated silence and passing over?
When Rumour Replaces Justice
Barely a few names appeared in the media when social networks transformed into popular courts, issuing verdicts even before investigations.
In this digital din, suspicion stands in for proof, and reputation becomes a sentence.
This is how Cheikh Ould Bedda was publicly labelled as a squanderer of public funds, in an unfair, deeply humiliating and morally wounding manner — an accusation that shocked all who knew him for his integrity and uprightness.
And in this tainted atmosphere, noise replaced law, and rumour substituted justice.
Defending Integrity, Not Individuals
We do not plead for a person, nor against an institution.
We plead for integrity as a structuring principle of public life —
the integrity of conscience, of action, of management, of speech.
We plead for justice that distinguishes error from crime,
for an ethic of responsibility that protects the honest as much as it punishes the guilty,
and for governance that values the honour of public service against media lynching.
For a justice that does not protect the innocent will never convince that it can punish the guilty.
And it is in this that the defence of Cheikh Ould Bedda goes beyond his person: it becomes the fight for the safeguarding of integrity in the face of distortion and injustice.
Written by Engineer El Hadj Sidi Brahim Sidi Yahya
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