Akon City plans abandoned in favour of "a realistic project"

Senegal's government has scrapped plans for Akon City, the multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency city project led by R&B singer Akon.

Akon City has been cancelled in favour of a scaled-back tourist resort project that will be overseen by Senegal's tourism development body Sapco, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The decision comes five years after Senegalese-American singer Akon finalised a deal with the government to build the $6 billion city on an 800-hectare site in the village of Mbodiène, south of the capital Dakar on the Atlantic Coast.

According to the BBC, officials cited a lack of funding and halted construction efforts as key reasons for the decision, despite Akon stating in 2022 that development was "100,000 per cent moving".

"The Akon City project no longer exists"

The site, which was gifted to Akon by the president of Senegal, reportedly remains almost entirely undeveloped, with a half-finished reception building the only built structure.

Senegal has now taken back control of the majority of the land and said it is working with Akon on a more "realistic project" to sit alongside its own $1 billion tourist development.

Just finalized the agreement for AKON CITY in Senegal. Looking forward to hosting you there in the future http://pic.twitter.com/dsoYpmjnpf

— AKON (@Akon) January 13, 2020

Akon finalised a deal to build the project in 2020

"The Akon City project no longer exists," Sapco head Serigne Mamadou Mboup told the BBC.

"Fortunately, an agreement has been reached between Sapco and the entrepreneur Alioune Badara Thiam (Akon)," Mboup continued. "What he's preparing with us is a realistic project, which Sapco will fully support."

Akon City was a futuristic, solar-powered city planned for Senegal with a 10-year timeline.

Akoin cryptocurrency wasn't "managed properly"

It was set to feature sinuous skyscrapers, a hospital and a university, and run on the singer's Akoin cryptocurrency – an initiative that has also fallen short of expectations, with Akon admitting "it wasn't being managed properly".

The replacement tourism development being led by Sapco will instead introduce hotels and apartments to the site, alongside a promenade that links to a lagoon nearby.

According to Bloomberg, Akon has retained eight hectares of land originally set for Akon City for a new, undisclosed project backed by Sapco.

Another city-building project to have recently made headlines is the New Administrative Capital – Egypt's new capital city that includes ceremonial spaces, a presidential palace and the largest mosque in Africa.

In Saudi Arabia, work is progressing on The Line – a 170-kilometre-long megacity that will consist of a pair of parallel 500-metre-high skyscrapers. It is the most high-profile element of Neom, which is one of the world's most controversial building projects.

The main photo of Akon is by the US Embassy Nairobi via Wikimedia Commons.

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