Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo, Amadou Ba, Moustapha Ba and Macky Sall were accused by Ousmane Sonko of manipulating data and thus embezzling public money. The current Prime Minister said that they will have to explain to the Senegalese “how they were able to put the country in this situation”.

A “financial carnage”! This is how Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko described the management of Macky Sall’s regime, at least during the last 4 years, sanctioned by a report on the state of affairs that Ousmane Sonko says he has and whose main points he presented yesterday, during a press conference. Less than two months before the holding of the legislative elections, he drew up a rather gloomy assessment of Macky Sall’s management.

« Macky Sall, who could not ignore these practices, Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo, Amadou Ba and Moustapha Ba will have to explain to the Senegalese how they were able to plunge the country into this situation. If we do it, it is because it is essential, especially since we are going to ask the Senegalese to agree to sacrifices, » declared Ousmane Sonko.

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The Prime Minister accuses the Macky Sall regime of having « lied to the country and partners by falsifying public figures, by giving erroneous data (…) on the public deficit which is double what was announced. The public debt is 10 points higher than what was announced and consistently since 2019. The exercise could have gone back further. But the 4 exercises are enough for us to see to what extent the Macky Sall regime lied to the People, to partners, fiddled with the figures to give an economic, financial and budgetary image that had nothing to do with reality. This is extremely serious. »

According to Sonko, known to be one of the politicians whose words are confronted every day, the financial partners would have turned a blind eye to the actions of the former regime. « On overfinancing, the partners had accepted that Senegal could go, in terms of fundraising, beyond what was annually authorized in anticipation of the first 4 months of 2024. Which were in any case uncertain exercises in view of the elections that were looming. 600 billion that should not have been spent until January 1, but which the regime spent before our arrival. That is to say, on the 2023 financial year, » said Ousmane Sonko.

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For Ousmane Sonko, the manipulation of data, the consequences of which would be a misappropriation of public funds, partly explains the country’s problems. « It is the sum of our culpable negligence and our authorities that are at the root of the situation we are experiencing. If we are here, it is because behaviour like that which we have just experienced have deprived the country of a certain number of assets, which throws young people into the oceans. These assets would have resolved the flood issue, because 750 billion are supposed to be swallowed up. Every time the People are lied to or a cent is diverted from its objective, it is an infrastructure, a public policy decision that would have impacted the lives of Senegalese people that has been compromised, » he said.

By Malick GAYE / mgaye@lequotidien.sn 

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH