To maintain urbi et orbi that Senegal’s accounts are falsified poses several problems of form and substance. Either the person who spoke does not understand anything about economics – which is likely – or he is engaging in gross manipulation, which is equally sustainable. Moreover, for a public official to make such remarks is to inaugurate a new chapter in the enterprise of national debasement, which is the trademark of the Pastef party. Senegal has serious and competent civil servants; among them eminent specialists in public finance, who have worked hard to straighten our economy, whose growth rates have continued to rise since the entry into force of the PSE.

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Although its growth was erratic between 2000 and 2011 (3.3% on average), Senegal was declared the country with the most regular average economic growth for the decade 2011-2021. Added to this is remarkable management of Covid-19, which allowed the mitigation of shocks and faster recovery thanks to the mechanisms implemented and especially the resilience of agriculture and industry. In addition to an economy on the rails of emergence, Senegal has a serious administration that Mr. Sonko and his political flock have continued to vilify and accuse of various plots for a decade. Mr. Sonko’s remarks, for any Senegalese with a bit of common sense, have no credibility as the man is naturally indelicate with the truth. But for the head of the administration to say that it is a machine of forgers is the height of irresponsibility. In addition, the statements are false for the simple reason that Senegal does not evolve in a vacuum. We are within UEMOA and in close collaboration with the IMF and multilateral organizations. The budget is known, expenditure and revenue are traced, and the amending finance laws are publicly voted on. Better still, the Court of Auditors has already validated the laws regulating the 2020, 2021 and 2022 management reports. Senegal cannot hide its data from the IMF, the World Bank, the Central Bank, etc.

Worse, the regime goes back on its word and publishes different figures in one week. Indeed, they have just published a National Development Strategy based on a deficit of 4.9%. The same people come to tell us a week later that the deficit is 10.4%.

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During two recent missions, the IMF gave its figures and outlook notes on our economy, which have not been denied by the government. The urgent thing for this regime is therefore to find solutions to the serious problems raised by the Fund, following the last review.  After expressing its satisfaction with the previous regime’s record, the Fund painted a gloomy picture of the current regime three months later. The deficit in one quarter rose from 3.9% to 7.5% of GDP. Growth, however, declined, from 7.1% to 6.0%. The IMF even gave the reasons for this gloomy climate, relating to the incoherent and noisy measures on construction, mining and industry.

This government claims to want to bet on the private sector, with a projected financing volume of 12,000 billion CFA francs, but is determined to stifle businesses with a confiscatory and thoughtless tax policy and childish political harassment. Let them tell us what is the coherence of counting on the private sector while putting our captains of industry in prison and engaging in tax harassment. Betting on the private sector while holding a speech that would make any investor back down is a curious way of doing things. Because in fact, following the mind-blowing remarks of September 26, the markets are panicking and Senegal’s credit has once again diminished according to a widely relayed Bloomberg article. Ousmane Sonko’s incompetence will ultimately harm the prestige of the State and national security.

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The outlook is bleak for our economy with a downward volume of resource mobilization unlike in previous years, interest rates exploding and a deficit widened after only six months of management. Confidence has crumbled and uncertainty is gaining ground in business circles due to the unpredictability of the most incompetent Prime Minister in the history of our country. All this obliges us to question Mr. Sonko, between two trips to the Grand Théâtre, on the cost of living, the tragedies of irregular emigration, floods, unemployment and the progressive isolation of Senegal on the international scene.

Another aspect of the problem lies in the cavalier method punctuated by fabrications, manipulations and lack of ethics of people who are supposed to lead a State. Because, according to the terms of article 1.7 of law 2012-22 of December 27, 2012 on the Code of Transparency in the Management of Public Finances, « within three months following each new presidential term, the overall situation of public finances, and in particular the situation of the State budget and its debt, is the subject of a report prepared by the government. This report, audited by the Court of Auditors, is published within the following three months. »

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However, the Court of Auditors is yet to publish the report on the overall situation of public finances. So where do the figures come from, distributed to journalists who relay them without ensuring the basic requirement of verification that is at the heart of their profession? For my part, I do not give any credence to the figures, statements, promises and commitments of an individual accustomed to falsifications and outrageous declarations.

After the gendarmes, the police, the magistrates, the military treated as mercenaries in the pay of France, the civil servants of the Ministry of Finance take their share of denigration. The enterprise is constant: to desacralize the institutions, to avoid real debates and the confrontation of ideas as in the planned DPG. He prefers to address an excited formless mass and a press that is not very rigorous or even complicit. Mr. Sonko is anything but consistent in his unenviable career. Last week, I read in Le Quotidien, a text by one of our compatriots. His terrible words of accuracy froze my blood. Speaking to Mr. Sonko, he said: “You have made everyone hate and detest everything that is great, good and beautiful in this country.”

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I was still thinking about this sentence while writing this column, and I cannot bring myself to accept that my country is heading towards the abyss with the complicity of academics, executives, activists, who once competed in ardour in signing platforms to supposedly defend the rule of law. Senegal is lowering itself before their eyes and they pretend to look the other way. This year, we commemorate the 22nd year of the national trauma – the capsizing of the Joola and the disappearance of about 2000 people. This September 26th had a particularly unpleasant flavour, because the Pastef party, in its enterprise of destruction of everything that can unite the national community, has struck again. Senegal sent a delegation led by a minister for the Landing of Provence, 6000 km from our coasts. This same government decides to break with the tradition of the national commemoration of September 26th. Its leader has decided to pollute the moment of sacredness and meditation of the entire Nation by organizing a political show. This rustic character persists in repeating his favourite exercise: speaking ill of his compatriots and ridiculing our country in front of the eyes of the world.

He only has the good taste not to invite Baba Wone to sing his praises, as a funeral oration. But it is now a matter of time.

By Hamidou ANNE / hamidou.anne@lequotidien.sn 

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH