Senegal’s government on Wednesday said its predecessor had “shredded” the west African country’s public purse after auditors found “anomalies” in the debt figures racked up under former president Macky Sall.Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, a firebrand critic of Sall who was locked up under his administration, has previously accused the authorities of fiddling its figures for the country’s debt and deficit on Sall’s watch. The ongoing furore over the state of the public finances since President Bassirou Dioumaye Faye replaced Sall last April led to the International Monetary Fund suspending its aid program in Senegal in response.A report published Wednesday by Senegal’s Audit Office, a body independent of the government, pointed to “omissions” in the management of the public finances in Sall’s last term between 2019 and 2024.For example 2023’s budget deficit as calculated by the Audit Office was 12.3 percent, more than double the 4.9 percent logged by the then-government. That year the government’s total debt reached nearly 100 percent of the country’s economic output, higher than the tally Sall’s administration announced, it added.The audit office pointed to “discrepancies in the public debt stock, over-financing anomalies and shortcomings in the management of bank deposits”, as well as “significant bank debt… not recorded in the state accounts”.It left open the possibility that some of those anomalies could be the result of criminality.- ‘Where was the Audit Office?’ -“This country was brought to its knees” by the former administration, presidential spokesperson Ousseynou Ly said on X, pointing to the “shredded finances” pictured in the report.But Youssou Diallo, a supporter of ex-leader Sall was critical of the Audit Office itself, accusing the body of “operating at the whim of those in power”.”One wonders where the Audit Office was during the period in question,” Diallo told AFP on Wednesday. “The entire leadership of the Audit Office must resign.”In December Sonko had called the state of Senegal’s finances a “catastrophe”, saying the country was running a budget deficit of 10.4 percent and a public debt burden of 76.3 percent of GDP.In early November an IMF spokesperson told AFP that it had suspended its aid programme in the country “pending the validation of the audit report by the Audit Office”.The multilateral body would not open discussions on a new program “until the situation is clarified by the Senegalese authorities,” the spokesperson added.President Faye, elected last March, rode to power on the promise of a break with the status quo under Sall.His Pastef party pledged economic transformation while tackling corruption, raising hopes among a largely youthful population facing high inflation and widespread unemployment.
