According to an article published by TelQuel on 14 January 2025, VINCI Group allegedly holds a 30% stake in Green of Africa Dakhla, a company established to develop a 200 MW wind farm in Bir Anzaran, near Dakhla, a city located in the territory illegally occupied by Morocco.

WSRW has asked VINCI for confirmation and details of the company’s involvement in Green of Africa Dakhla project. VINCI has not responded.

Green of Africa Dakhla’s majority owner is Green of Africa, a renewable project developer with powerful owners. The firm is part of Akwa Group SA, the holding company that is property of Morocco’s billionaire prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch. Co-owning the firm are two of Akhannouch’s friends: banker Otham Benjelloun of BMCE Bank of Africa and Mustapha Amhal of the Amhal Group. Green of Africa was set up in 2015. 

In 2019, Ahmed Nakkouch, former head of Nareva – the renewable energy firm owned by the king of Morocco, was appointed as the Green of Africa's CEO.

Moroccan media indicate that on 22 January 2025, Green of Africa Dakhla secured financing contracts for the Bir Anzaran wind farm project. The project has obtained 3.8 billion Moroccan dirhams in funding from a consortium of Moroccan banks, including Attijariwafa Bank, Banque Centrale Populaire, and Bank of Africa. 

Given the legal context surrounding Western Sahara, the involvement of an EU-based corporation in the territory is particularly contentious. Notably, in October 2024, the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) issued rulings that annulled the application of EU-Morocco preferential trade and fisheries agreements in Western Sahara. Western Sahara is a territory that is separate and distinct from Morocco, the Court argued, and Morocco has no sovereignty or administering power over the territory. As such, in order not to violate the Saharawi people's right to self-determination, EU agreements with Morocco cannot have effect in Western Sahara without the consent of the Saharawi people.

VINCI isn't new to the territory. In 2021, the Moroccan government contracted VINCI to construct a 400 kV transmission line between El Aaiún and Hagounia, a location just south of the border between Morocco and occupied Western Sahara. WSRW wrote the company's subsidiary Cegelec in 2021. The company responded without commenting on the main WSRW concerns. A follow-up letter from WSRW was not responded to.  

Another subsidiary of Vinci, Entrepose, in 2015 carried out onshore oil drilling in Western Sahara on behalf of Irish oil company San Leon Energy. This is the only onshore oil drilling operation ever undertaken in the territory during five decades of occupation. In 2013, VINCI's subsidiary Cegelec, was involved in the construction of the Foum el Oued wind farm that supplies the Bou Craa phosphate mine with energy. 
 

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