After hearing about it for almost ten years, and watching its preparation for about 7 months, the Senegalese were finally able to have a concrete vision of the content of the famous « Project » which is intended to change all of our lives. For that alone, we must all feel greatly relieved. After having kept an entire country in suspense, we finally all know the path that our leaders will make us take so that Senegal can become, 26 years later, a « sovereign, just and prosperous » country. 

You have to be bitter and full of jealousy not to realize that this « National Agenda for Transformation Senegal 2050 » is a total break and constitutes a major step forward compared to Macky Sall’s famous Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE). The titles already give an idea of ​​the difference in vision.

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When one wanted to make the country emerge, the other wants nothing less than to transform it, that is to say, to create a new type of Senegalese, if that is feasible.

Then, it will be noted that, like his ambitions which, at one time, according to his « friends », stopped at Diamniadio, the vision of President Macky Sall with his PSE, did not go further than 2035. The new regime, for its part, is giving itself 15 more years to 2050. In addition, it is not counting on contributions from abroad to shape the country. A strong ambition, which must be warmly welcomed, especially since it will need, initially, more than 18,000 billion CFA francs to achieve its objectives, while the PSE in its Phase 3, only needed a little less than 15,000 billion for the period 2019-2023. But the initiators of the « Project », President Diomaye and his Prime Minister, are assured of achieving their objectives.

Of course, they warn against a certain tendency to rush. Did Sonko glance at the audience? We can think so when we hear him declare that his regime will not seek, like some, to « accelerate the pace ». But we know that with this statement, a big stone has fallen in the gardens of the Presidency, on the side of the offices of the Special Envoys. But sometimes, we do not always control our words. By assuring that he only wanted to call on local expertise to develop this national development benchmark, the head of government had proclaimed and declaimed that it would not cost as much as with the work of McKinsey. We are willing to believe it. However, we must question the rumours that the work of the Performance Group would cost the taxpayer more than 2 billion CFA francs.

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It was Pierre Goudiaby Atepa, the new political authorities’ reference for National Employers, who played the intermediary with the new regime. And everyone knows that the brilliant architect-engineer is not into philanthropy. In addition, Victor Ndiaye, a member of the Investors Club (Cis) headed by Atepa, already knew about development plans. Did he not contribute greatly to the development of the PSE’s Pap 3, under the leadership of former Prime Minister Amadou Ba? This would probably be why he said to himself that there was no reason to pay a lot to a foreign firm, and to make him work for the same work, for the glory of the Nation. But, let us remember, the amount remains to be verified.

In any case, the intrusion of Victor Ndiaye explains the many similarities between the two documents, PSE and « Project ». Starting first with the objectives. The PSE was structured on 3 major axes which are the structural transformation of the economy and growth, the development of human capital, social protection and sustainable development, and finally, good governance, the strengthening of institutions, peace and security.

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The « Project » wants to develop around 4 axes which are governance and pan-African commitment, development and sustainable planning of the territory, human capital and social justice and, competitiveness of the economy and job creation.

On other levels too, when talking about the revival of industry, the development of the agri-food sector or even construction products, the « Project » gives the impression of having simply updated the objectives of the PSE. However, apart from financing, the PSE for its part, faced with the efficiency of its implementation, was not able to arouse the enthusiasm of the private sector. We are very curious to see how the managers of the « Project » intend to achieve a better result. All the more so since they do not seem to show any more ambition. But it must be repeated that the new document is supposed to be able to take us much further than the one that was developed in its time under Macky Sall. The new leaders, patriots as they call themselves, have always claimed that they had more love for the country than Macky Sall, who spent his time planting infrastructure that Ousmane Sonko said yesterday would soon be nothing but ruins. They claim to have more ambition. And they want to put an end to the remnants of Macky’s Governance. Both within the public administration and in the private sector.

It was revealing to see, in the panel commenting on the presentation of the reference document, that it was Antoine Ngom who spoke on behalf of the Employers’ Association. While recognizing his skills and ability, we must emphasize that the president of Optic is not the most important in the hierarchical structure of the National Employers’ Council (CNP). Was this a way for Baïdy Agne and his fellow vice-presidents to express their sulking in some way? The absence of the second largest employers’ organization, the CNES, did not go unnoticed either.

We know that it is not the merchants who are members of Unacois who are able to drive the industrialization of the country on their own, despite their large number. For years, successive governments have had difficulty formalizing them, as Ousmane Sy Ndiaye pointed out in less crude terms. Relying on them to revive the economy means preparing to turn the country into a big souk, everyone knows that.

Perhaps we should believe that our leaders have a magic wand to transform our private sector into what they want it to be. In the meantime, if they want concrete results, it would be in their interest, for the good of all, to open up to investors who are already established. Can it be realistic to talk about the private sector within the country, when we have not finished combating the rural exodus and attempts at illegal emigration? As they themselves have said, it will not be a question of brutally cutting ties with foreign countries, but of gradually learning to do without them. Didn’t the Prime Minister himself say it? Where they expected to find a building on the ground floor, they ended up on the fourth basement floor because of the erroneous data left by their predecessors. This is probably what distorted their calculations and led them, on September 26, to declare that the situation in the country was worse than what they had been told. Whatever the reality, such a situation does not improve all at once, and sustainable growth cannot be achieved in a short period of time.

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Having made all these assertions, one may wonder how the new authorities can confidently claim to dismiss everything that has been done during the twelve years of Macky Sall’s regime, and ensure that they are not building on sand. If their benchmark is presented as it is, it is because, whether they like it or not, it is based on the figures produced since the time of Macky Sall. Moreover, would Victor Ndiaye, as well as the civil servants of the Ministries of Economy and Finance, who had to work on these two projects, be humanly capable of producing two totally different documents? Moreover, and even despite the boasting, we see that the new benchmark is often less ambitious than the PSE. The latter, without highlighting hydrocarbons, the effects of which were not known in 2014 and 2019, had not included them in their growth figures. But Macky and his team had made projections of 7% growth, and more from 2023, up to more than 10% well after. Thanks to his PSE, the effects of Covid did not prevent us from achieving more than 1% growth rates where even developed economies had fallen into recession. But these were perhaps also false figures, we could be told today. Nevertheless, the Diomaye-Sonko benchmark does not think it will produce more than 6% growth in its best years. With these kinds of figures could we really achieve a systemic transformation of Senegalese society? Let us not forget that we have a very young population that is destined to grow. It is true that to reassure us, we were told that it was enough to have determined and honest leaders to achieve our development objectives within 26 years. So, at that time, we will probably be in the La La Land.

By Mohamed GUEYE / mgueye@lequotidien.sn 

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