Burkinabè billionaire Mahamadou Bonkoungou's Ebomaf now holds 485km of Gabon road contracts

Ismaël Bonkoungou flew by helicopter into the Ngounié province of southern Gabon in the first week of August to walk the earthworks on two road contracts his company is building for the Gabonese state.

The managing director of Ebomaf BTP Gabon inspected the 84-kilometre Lébamba to Mbigou route and the Yombi to Mandji section, checking progress at specific markers along the alignment. Crews were preparing a ford at kilometre point 5+284, laying the sub-base between points 8+400 and 8+800, and readying the deck of a culvert at 14+628. Quarry operations at kilometre 19+200 were running at capacity and the workers' camps at Lébamba and Mbigou were being expanded.

The visit came a year after the Gabonese government terminated a different contract with the same group.

Ebomaf, the initials of Entreprise Bonkoungou Mahamadou et Fils, is controlled by the Burkinabè billionaire Mahamadou Bonkoungou and is now one of the largest holders of Gabonese public works contracts. Its road book alone runs to roughly 485 kilometres across five projects, alongside an international airport and a planned city.

What the state has awarded

President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema launched the Lébamba to Mbigou to Malinga to Molo corridor on March 21, 2025, a 208-kilometre route intended to connect three departments of southern Ngounié, Louetsi-Wano, Boumi-Louetsi and Louetsi-Bibaka, to the Congolese border. The Ministry of Public Works has separately described the full project as 267 kilometres, and the two figures have never been reconciled publicly.

The contract calls for a single-carriageway bituminous concrete road on an improved laterite formation, following the alignment of the completed Ndendé to Lébamba road, with culverts and box drains replacing existing structures. An 80-metre bridge over the Biroundou river, in wetland, is among the major works. Execution time is set at 72 months.

Ebomaf inherited studies rather than commissioning them. Tunisian consultancy Studi International completed the design for the Lébamba to Mbigou segment in 2007, and Ebomaf is required to update that work while carrying out a fresh study for the 124-kilometre Mbigou to Malinga section, according to Gervais Medi Tsoka, director general of transport infrastructure at the Ministry of Public Works.

The wider Gabonese portfolio includes the 83-kilometre Ntoum to Cocobeach road, scheduled over 48 months, the 125-kilometre Yombi to Carrefour Rabi section and the 119-kilometre Carrefour Rabi to Omboué stretch, the last two forming part of a 244-kilometre programme linking Ngounié to Ogooué-Maritime province.

Beyond roads, Oligui Nguema broke ground in March 2024 on Andem International Airport, a 220 billion CFA franc project worth about $370 million that Ebomaf is leading and which is intended to open before 2030. The group is also developing Libreville 2, a planned smart city covering 13,000 hectares with an agricultural processing hub, rail connections and research facilities.

Mahamadou Bonkoungou was received by Oligui Nguema at the seafront presidential palace in Libreville on March 26 this year, and inspected the Ntoum to Cocobeach site himself on June 11.

The schedule question

Edgard Moukoumbi, the minister of public works, inspected the Lébamba to Mbigou works on June 27 and put completion at 12.50 percent.

Measured against the 72-month contract period that began in March 2025, roughly 15 months had elapsed by that inspection, or about 21 percent of the allotted time, a Billionaires.Africa calculation. The gap does not by itself indicate a project in difficulty. Earthworks, drainage and right-of-way clearance run slower than paving, wetland structures such as the Biroundou bridge absorb time early, and Ebomaf has been moving heavy civil engineering plant into the province over recent weeks to raise the pace.

Local reporting has taken a favourable view of the site visits, describing them as evidence that senior management is close to the work and clearing supply bottlenecks as they arise. Residents of Mbigou and Malinga, isolated for decades, have said they want the completion dates honoured, and the corridor is expected to lower transport costs and open access to markets in a region marked by unemployment and rural depopulation.

The contract Gabon cancelled

Gabon's National Inland and International Navigation Company announced on Aug. 20, 2025 that it was ending its partnership with Ebomaf, six months after the Burkinabè group had been brought in to run the state shipping operator.

Ebomaf took control of CNNII in February 2025, having delivered a vessel to secure passenger transport between Libreville and the oil hub of Port-Gentil. The company was carrying heavy debt, suppliers were unpaid and staff were owed 17 months of wages. Gabonese officials presented Ebomaf's arrival as a rescue.

Officials said afterwards that Ebomaf had fallen short on its commitments, particularly on providing the capital required and meeting operational targets. The termination came barely six months after the handover.

The road and airport awards have continued regardless.

Bonkoungou left Dédougou in Burkina Faso's Boucle du Mouhoun region in 1988 with a baccalaureate and no capital, traded gold and cassettes across West Africa, and built Ebomaf into a group spanning construction, logistics, aviation, finance and hospitality with operations in Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo, Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon. He acquired the Togolese Bank for Commerce and Industry, owns the machinery distributor Bonkoungou Distribution, and runs the private jet operator Liza Transport International and the airline Liz Aviation, launched in April 2023. Billionaires.Africa has valued the empire at $3 billion.

Gabonese outlets describe the contractor variously as Burkinabè and Togolese, reflecting the group's Burkina Faso origins and its Lomé headquarters.