The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has confirmed the findings of the Court of Auditors’ report on Senegal’s “hidden” debt, bringing to light deliberate underestimations while demanding reforms before any new loans to the West African country, APA learned Tuesday.
“There was a very conscious decision to underestimate the debt stock” over the past five years in Senegal, said Eddy Gemayel, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission.
“We therefore agree with the conclusion of the Court of Auditors’ report,” he added in an
interview with RFI.
This deliberately “hidden” amount amounts to approximately seven billion dollars, according to the financial institution. It corresponds to the difference between the two estimates of publicdebt: that declared under Macky Sall’s administration, which represents more than 70 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and that calculated by the Court of Auditors, which approaches 100 percent of GDP.
Following the publication of this report, which covers the audit of the country’s public finances between 2019 and March 2024, several opponents of the new regime strongly contested the study,
calling it false and claiming that it had been commissioned by Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko to discredit the management of the former Macky Sall regime.
“The Court of Auditors’ report is very clear: there was a conscious decision to underestimate the debt stock in previous years,” Gemayel insisted, before specifying that this underestimation amounts to approximately $6 billion to $7 billion, or 25 percent of the country’s GDP.
“There is an underestimation. “We have a portion of the debt that has been hidden, and this has allowed the authorities to borrow more on the markets, to send a more positive signal to the financial markets, and also to borrow at more favourable rates than those rates would have been if the debt were higher,” explained the head of the IMF delegation, welcoming the new regime’s drive to introduce greater transparency.
“The transparency approach is well received,” he emphasised in an interview with Le Soleil.
However, the IMF has dampened Senegal’s credit expectations, according to Walf Quotidien. The country had hoped to obtain a loan of €1.8 billion, or more than 1 trillion CFA francs, during this visit, following the publication of the Court of Auditors’ report.
However, Gemayel insisted on the need to take corrective measures regarding “false information” on the debt before any release of funds could be made.
Furthermore, Justice Minister Ousmane Diagne had already announced prosecutions against all those allegedly responsible for the widening budget deficit and public debt, including former ministers, directors general, accountants, and managers involved.
“The Court of Auditors has submitted the results of the audit of public finances, and these irregularities go beyond simple accounting errors,” he emphasised last February during a government press conference, specifying that a series of investigations would be opened
into serious offenses such as “forgery, computer forgery, embezzlement of public funds, fraud, and money laundering.”
ODL/Sf/ac/fss/as/APA