Better known as Mame Boye Diao, in reference to his grandfather, whose first names he bears, El Hadji Mamadou Diao is one of three tax and property inspectors, along with Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Amadou Ba, on the official list of 19 candidates for the presidential election on 24 March. After a long militancy in the ruling coalition, the mayor of Kolda (south) slammed the door in September 2023 after President Macky Sall nominated former Prime Minister Amadou Ba to be the candidate of Benno Bokk Yakaar (United in Hope).
This attitude bears witness to the enormous ambition of the leader of the Diao 2024 coalition, previously known as the coalition “for a new Senegal,” for his country. In fact, the former Managing Director of the ‘Caisse des Depots et Consignations’ (CDC) has concocted a 32-page presidential programme in which he says he wants to “pursue our dreams and build the Senegal that is coming,” in reference to a book-programme of the same name that he recently published.
His political vision is essentially based on the concept of “strategic autonomy,” because for him “you can only rely on yourself to develop.” Once elected, his first priority will be to “preserve our strategic assets” in oil and gas, mining resources, energy, crafts and national businesses, while meeting the challenges of digital transformation,
land, culture and so on.
As Senegal prepares to become a hydrocarbon-producing country, El Hadji Mamadou Diao intends to carry out a number of reforms to ensure that his country benefits from a large part of the oil and gas windfall to be reaped. “Senegal’s gas resources are estimated at 1,120 billion from four fields, one of which (Grand Tortue Ameyim, with a capacity of 560 billion cubic metres) is co-managed with Mauritania. The oil reserves are 1030 million barrels from four fields currently being exploited,” recalls the former student of the University Gaston-Berger in Saint-Louis, where he obtained a master’s degree in political science with a major in international relations in 1996,
before passing the prestigious ‘Ecole Normale d’Administration’ (ENA)
entrance exam two years later.
Energy, food security, industrialisation…
In his priority actions for hydrocarbons, the former Director of Lands promises to separate the national investments of the Sovereign Fund for Strategic Investments (FONSIS) from its management derived from
the extractive sector, to create a new, more modern and more efficient oil refining plant and to ensure participatory and inclusive management of natural resources…
To ensure that all Senegalese have access to electricity, Mr. Diao proposes to carry out “energy mapping” to identify the specific features and needs of each area. Electricity production strategies will be developed on the basis of the regions and priority sources available, he said, adding that mining mapping shows that the central
and northern parts of the country are “very rich in lime phosphate.” He also pointed out that climatic conditions are conducive to the development of photovoltaic energy, with plenty of sunshine.
As for industry and trade, the mayor of Kolda, one of the largest towns in the natural region of Casamance, is committed to creating an incentive scheme for multinationals wishing to set up in Senegal, and an impetus fund dedicated to national industry in areas specific to agricultural and fisheries processing, while working to regionalise industrial policies according to specific needs. He also says he is ready to define a policy for developing a processing industry using automation and large-scale production tools for Senegalese crafts,
which, “with more than 150 trades, is a reservoir of employment and know-how.”
For his second priority as President of the Republic, Mame Boye Diao promises to ensure food security and sovereignty in a country where “agriculture employs more than 60% of the working population” but
which is struggling to feed itself properly. To achieve this, he intends to create a fund for agricultural research, with a considerable increase in the resources of research and experimentation centres, the strengthening of the “Bay Nawet Bay Noor” (year-round crop) by increasing and diversifying the speculations (crops) before
proceeding to abolish the agricultural lease in favour of the
agro-industrial lease.
Strong primary sector, technological innovation…
Faced with numerous complaints from the fishing industry, the president of the Diao 2024 coalition is proposing to define a quota of fishing licences to be allocated to small-scale fishermen. He will also be building capacity by creating a fishing trade school and ensuring that the biological rest period is rigorously applied. With regard to livestock farming, which contributes an average of 28.5 percent to the value added of the primary sector and 4.3 percent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), its interventions will focus on the creation, modernisation and reinforcement of areas and structures dedicated to livestock farming. He also promises to step up the
structural transformation of the livestock value chain to ensure self-sufficiency in meat (ruminants and poultry).
El Hadji Mamadou Diao’s third governance priority will focus on “innovation and societal reform.” “In a world where technological innovation seems to be surging ahead at dizzying speed, an introspective approach is needed,” says the leader of the Diao 2024 Coalition, pointing out that reform “refers to the profound, radical
change made to something, in particular an institution, with the aim of improving the way it functions.”
To tackle the problems of access to drinking water and sanitation, Mr. Diao has pledged to invest more than 500 billion CFA francs a year. This funding will be used to, among other priority actions, build wells, boreholes and water treatment infrastructure, as well as rehabilitate and maintain existing works and implement projects to
improve sanitation systems, including the construction of treatment plants, and collect and treat wastewater.
Reconciling the Senegalese people
If elected, the tax inspector’s work on taxation and public debt management will focus on increasing the contribution of tax revenue to the State budget, broadening the tax base, reducing the tax burden, tax evasion and certain regressive exemptions, and facilitating trade to optimise the customs base.
Candidate El Hadji Mamadou Diao’s fourth and final programmatic priority concerns “good governance and social reconciliation,” given that the country has been fractured over the past three years by violent socio-political tensions. For him, these two concepts “are key elements for the development of a country,” while the parliamentary majority of the outgoing Head of State, Macky Sall, voted ten days ago for an amnesty bill to erase criminal and correctional offences committed between 2021 and 2023 in the context of political demonstrations related to the political and judicial problems of the well-known opponent Ousmane Sonko.
The priority actions in this priority area will be to “reconcile the Senegalese people,” promote national solidarity and fully introduce the equal opportunities card and strengthen the national solidarity fund, while automating the State’s judicial and administrative procedures, emphasised Mr. Diao, who claims to be a friend of Ousmane Sonko, the mayor of Ziguinchor (south) who was released from prison on Thursday evening in the company of his candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
ODL/ac/abj/APA