According to Africa Intelligence, the private consulting firm SouthBridge A&I has been mandated to help the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, and that of Health, Khalid Aït Taleb, to convince the AU Center for Disease Control (Africa CDC ) to move its headquarters from Addis Ababa to Rabat.

The challenge is as follows, explains the Parisian exclusive information site: The African Union must renew its commissioners in 2021, in particular that of health and humanitarian affairs. However, this last post is occupied by the Sudanese Amira Elfadi, who is reputed to be hostile to Morocco because of her tropism in favor of the Polisario Front. That said, Elfadi will not be back and Rabat is scrapping to place Professor Abderrahmane Maaroufi, head of the Institut Pasteur de Casablanca (IPC) who already represents North Africa on the advisory and technical council of Africa CDC.

Major concern for SouthBridge A&I, the firm which sells its studies to a number of Moroccan government departments, most of which are stamped RNI, the political family of Belkhayat, has no experience in diplomatic lobbying and even less relays at the Ethiopian headquarters of the AU.

Africa Intelligence believes, however, that it "will be able to rely on SouthBridge Group, the firm co-piloted by the Beninese e-Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou and the former president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Rwandan Donald Kaberuka", even if the “two structures have no capital ties” and have acted since their simultaneous creation in concert in several countries.

According to our sources, it is precisely this alliance that "oversold" Hassan Belkhayat to Nasser Bourita who "would have seen nothing but fire". SouthBridge Group manages from Paris a public affairs consultancy activity which has branches in Abidjan and Kigali, but neither the Beninese Zinsou nor the Rwandan Donald Kaberuka have decisive entries into the mysteries of the AU where Morocco still comes up against the great influence of its Algerian and South African adversaries.

In terms of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic on the continent, King Mohammed VI had also launched last April a West African initiative parallel to that of the AU, considering that the latter was not up to the task. of the crisis. Only two staunch allies of Rabat, the Senegalese presidents Macky Sall and the Ivorian Alassane Ouattara had actually announced their rallying to Morocco…

Thus propelled into the heart of Cherifian diplomacy in Africa, Hassan Belkhayat who has just been opportunely co-opted today as a member appointed by the Board of Directors of the CGEM will have to deal with Abdou Diop (Mazars) who inherited for his share of the Africa Commission at the expense of Laaziz El Kadiri whose controversial candidacy was blocked in etremis by…Nasser Bourita and Mohamed El Kettani (Attijariwafa bank)…