Yesterday, at the time when Pastef parliamentarians were capturing the attention of the public around a war of positions and appointments, the country continued to get lost in conjectures on the direction in which the governance of President Diomaye Faye was leading us. If the new political regime has promised many things to the People, no one has yet really noticed any real change. Sometimes, we even have the impression that things are going backwards.

Rains, agriculture, economy…

Just to illustrate, the country experienced this year some of the most terrible floods it has ever known in the last two decades. A large part of the hinterland was flooded, and there were even deaths, swept away by the overflowing waters of the Senegal River. If the city of Touba was not spared, it is hardly if some have been able to note that the capital Dakar had to complain of an excess of rainwater this year. It would have been delicate to recall it, if we did not want to magnify the work accomplished by President Macky Sall to put an end to the floods. On the contrary, it is much more gratifying to ridicule the more than 766 billion CFA francs allegedly wasted under the pretext of flood control. This ten-year flood control program was called into question two years ago, after heavy flooding in the commune of Keur Massar. However, it did not take long to demonstrate that the sanitation works had been sabotaged. Malicious people deliberately blocked the rainwater drainage works, clearly in order to cause flooding… And, it was successful. Now that the political motives for these sabotages have disappeared, the commune has no longer relived this year the dread of heavy winter rains.

Read the column – Get fishing out of troubled waters

But in the areas that were not affected by this program, the story was very different. To the point that the supervising minister had to come out, in a pirouette, that this year’s wintering was « not (their) winter »… The victims must have appreciated it.

But it is not just rain management. In these columns, we have looked several times at the preparation and management of the current agricultural campaign, to affirm that the farmers did not find themselves in the triumphant declarations of the supervisory authority. Everyone now realizes, with the start of the peanut marketing campaign, that the most pessimistic forecasts are being exceeded. To be convinced of this, it is enough to realize that the Minister of Agriculture and his counterpart of Commerce have reversed their decision to ban the export of peanuts. The measure would have been very difficult to implement, despite the mobilization of the Defense and Security Forces (FDS) whose role it is not.

Sonko and his falsified figures

Let’s not even talk about macroeconomic aggregates. Last September, the government, with Prime Minister Sonko at the head, declared that the economic figures, on which the budget forecasts were established, and which have been presented to date to economic and financial partners, were all « falsified », and that the country’s economic situation was deeply degraded. The consequences of these statements were not long in coming. Most of the funding hoped for from partners, even from the International Monetary Fund, was frozen. Everyone is holding back their funds, while waiting to see the direction the country is taking. To the point that we see on social networks a video where Mr. Sonko recognizes that his alarmist statements about the country’s economy « have contributed to worrying partners, and made the situation even more difficult ». No doubt a small moment of lucidity…

Read the column – 5 years to keep the promises

What hides in the 3rd quarter Quarterly Budget Execution Report?

The question that arises is that the Court of Auditors will soon have to publish its report on the 2023 budget management, which corresponds to the last management of the Macky Sall regime. We will then see if this institution will take the opposite view of the decisions it announced during the twelve years of Macky Sall’s mandate, and will reinforce the declarations of the current government. Or if the Court of Auditors will reaffirm its independence and produce a report in line with what it has always produced, and which reflects the integrity of the management of the country’s finances.

While waiting to learn more, we realize that the current government has decided to indulge in dilettantism. Contrary to the good habits to which we have been accustomed to date, it has still not published the Quarterly Budget Implementation Report for the third quarter. The report should have been published since last September. To date, on the websites of the Ministry of Finance and the Budget, no information is given on this shortcoming. The last document of this kind dates from last July.

Read the column – Vision Senegal 2050, a glaring lack of ambition!

However, the publication of this document is provided for by law. Moreover, it is still stated that « this report is prepared in application of article 70 of organic law n° 2020-07 of February 26, 2020 relating to finance laws and published in accordance with the provisions provided for in point 6.6 of the annex to law n° 2022-12 of December 27, 2022 relating to the Code of transparency in the management of public finances ».

Bad tongues will probably wag that the government has things that it would not like to communicate to the public at this time. Because if we refer to the previous document, we see that the level of budget execution is not as catastrophic, for a « ruined economy », according to the words of the head of government. We note in fact, in the Second Quarter Execution Report, that « compared to the second quarter of 2023, the resources of the general budget have increased by 79.14 billion CFA francs in absolute value, or 4.3% in relative value. This increase is attributable to internal resources (+99.83 billion CFA francs, or +5.7%) thanks to the good level of tax revenue collection (+121.60 billion CFA francs, or +7.5%), particularly direct and indirect taxes which increased by 77.18 billion CFA francs (or 10.7%) and 38.00 billion CFA francs (or 4.1%), respectively, compared to the previous year. The rest of the document is in the same vein. If in the meantime, the situation has deteriorated sharply, the government will then have to give the people good explanations. And even on the contrary, if it becomes even more dramatic, the public authorities could always still try to undermine their predecessors, and will find all the explanations that come to mind.

We can imagine that things will be made even easier for them now that the Assembly has taken office. But the MPs also know that their priority will be to quickly vote on the budget that will accelerate the implementation of Vision 2050, the PSE of the Diomaye-Sonko tandem. They must not drag their feet, because they know the country’s emergencies. And above all, if there is one piece of advice to give them, it is to really encourage the promotion of transparency, in order to encourage the business world to regain confidence in this country.

By Mohamed GUEYE / mgueye@lequotidien.sn 

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH / Serigne S. DIAGNE