The project required the clearing of 18 hectares of land, resulting in thirteen households losing agricultural land and 32 households losing a combined 115 housing plots. In total, 765 people are affected by the project.

There was no resettlement process, instead those affected were compensated in cash which was paid before a Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) had been drafted. Those affected did not receive the proper documentation (a census form), that officially identifies them as an affected person and lists their losses, meaning they were not able to sign anything formally. The compensation proposed in the RAP, 1,500,000 CFA francs (around $2600) per plot of 300 m², was considered inadequate by the affected households because they did not compensate for the losses suffered. Some affected people have still not received compensation.

The communities in the vicinity of the project - Malicounda Ngeurigne (a part of Malicounda Sereer), Malicounda Bambara, and Keur Maissa Faye (a part of Milicounda Wolof) communities - have or will be impacted by the project, as most practice agriculture, trading or fishing for their source of income.
Community members have not been adequately informed about the risks of the project, or the plans for displacement and existence of a RAP. They were also not consulted on compensation, the environmental and social management plan or the participatory livelihood improvement plans that were drawn up for farming households.

Lumière Synergie Développement (LSD), a Senegal-based lobby and advocacy organisation that monitors development finance institutions, filed a complaint concerning the compensation process through the AfDB complaints mechanism. The organisation blames the bank for a lack of project monitoring and failing to follow up on its recommendations to Senelec, leading to non-compliance with the Bank’s operational safeguards for land acquisition, population displacement and compensation.

Health impacts: The operation of the power plant involves burning of fuel oil, giving off toxic fumes, and emitting smoke and hazardous waste. The resulting air pollution and dust from the project is likely to create health impacts such as dermatological conditions and respiratory ailments for the workers and surrounding communities. The Senegalese Environmental Code stipulates a buffer zone of 500 metres between power plants with high environmental and social impacts, such as Malicounda, and houses and buildings open to the public and yet maps in the ESIA clearly show that this is not the case. The project therefore not only violates this code but also increases the risk of health impacts occurring.

Job opportunies: The project is supposed to generate 300 jobs during the construction phase and 60 jobs during operation and, despite commitments to employ the local population as stated in the ESIA, community members report that most workers employed come from other parts of the country, and those who were employed recently lost their job because construction work is coming to an end.

Climate change: The plant will burn 197,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil per year. This will generate 108,000 tonnes of CO² per year, worsening the climate crisis that Senegal is already facing.

More than 70 percent of the workforce in Senegal is employed or earns an income through agriculture. Rainfall has been inadequate and smallholder agriculture, which is predominantly rainfed, is already experiencing difficulties due to overexploitation of land and degraded soil. Climate change is expected to magnify most of these challenges.

In addition, the fishery sector, another large source of employment and diet, stands to be impacted by climate change induced rising surface water temperatures and ocean acidification and housing along the coast is at risk from sea level rise-induced erosion.

Challenges for environmental and human rights defenders: “The challenges that organisations and communities face are mostly related to the environmental and social assessment of projects. These ESIAs are often incomplete or poorly done. When they are done well, the recommendations made may not be respected or implemented because of the strong political support for these types of projects. This is also the case with this project because the design and ESIA is based on a hypothetical switch from an oil-fired power plant to a gas-fired power station in the future”, according to Lumière Synergie Développement, Senegal.