In the summary proceedings of the Court of Auditors, sent to the Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice, Ousmane Diagne, on the audit of the report relating to the situation of public finances 2019-2024, hides a scandal of considerable scale.
Everything took place in January 2022, when the Minister responsible for finance signed, on behalf of the State of Senegal, a credit agreement with International Business (IB) Bank Togo and International Business (IB) Bank Burkina Faso. This contract concerned an amount of 91,942,400,000 FCFA, supposed to be intended for the acquisition of equipment for the State of Senegal, without any details on the nature of said material.
According to information published by the observer, the total amount of credit, including interest, amounts to 105,052,249,080 FCFA, refundable no later than December 31, 2026, according to quarterly deadlines. In accordance with the terms of the agreement, the funds were to be mobilized in an account of the State of Senegal, referenced “TG 024-01030-026631500101-17”, opened in the books of IB Bank Togo. Within the framework of this operation, the State paid various commissions, for an amount of 919,424,000 FCFA, to the banks concerned, via the “CAP Government” deposit account.
The Court of Auditors has noted several major irregularities: absence of information on the nature and destination of the equipment to be acquired, contractualization of a public debt outside of regulatory procedures, non-return of the borrowing product in the accounts of the Treasury, and finally reimbursement by the Treasury of the Bullshit of the loan, an amount of 80 041 771 576 FCFA, not counted in its books. This last point, also reported by the observer, raises strong questions about the traceability of public funds in such an opaque operation. This affair, already relayed in several surveys of the observer, once again highlights the failures of the public debt management circuit in Senegal.
