Blinken says U.S. investing in Africa without unsustainable debt

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday his country was investing in Africa without imposing unsustainable levels of debt, as he witnessed the signing of contracts worth more than $1 billion in Senegal's capital Dakar.

The deals between four U.S. companies and Senegal are being billed as part of his country's pitch to help Africa build infrastructure with transparent and sustainable deals.

Careful not to directly criticise Chinese infrastructure projects, which have proliferated in the past decade, Blinken said during a visit to Nigeria on Friday that international deals were too often opaque and coercive.

The U.S. is investing "without saddling the country with a debt that it cannot handle," he said during the signing ceremony with Senegal's Economy Minister Amadou Hott.

He said he had a deep concern for the stability of neighbouring Mali, which has experienced two coups in the last 18 months, and that the upcoming election there must follow a timetable drawn up by the regional bloc ECOWAS.

Earlier this month ECOWAS, West Africa's main political and economic bloc, imposed sanctions on Mali's transitional leaders, after they informed the organisation they would not be able to hold presidential and legislative elections in February.

"We look forward to resuming the full array of assistance as soon as this democratically elected government takes office," Blinken told reporters.

Reuters reported in September that Mali's military junta was in discussions about deploying a Russian military contractor, Wagner Group, in Mali to help fight a growing Islamist insurgency.

"It would be especially unfortunate if outside actors engaged in making things even more difficult and more complicated and I'm thinking particularly of groups like the Wagner Group," Blinken said.