According to a press release dated October 4, 2024 from the Ministry of Finance and Budget, the Moody’s agency has revised Senegal’s economic rating downward. In the wake of the exit of the Prime Minister, Mr. Ousmane Sonko himself, who declared urbi et orbi that Senegal is a facade which hides a structure in ruins, our country went from Ba3 stable country to B1 country under surveillance.
In easy French, this international rating agency, following the logic of the Prime Minister, caused Senegal to fall from the status of an economically stable country to that of a failed country to be placed under surveillance.
In an article with an evocative title (“Own goal or goal against its camp”), Youssou Diallo, president of Club Sénégal Émergent, expressed the jargon of the rating agency into tangible realities: “The immediate and non-exhaustive consequences of this degradation for Senegal are: the immediate increase in interest on commercial debt; increasingly difficult access to multilateral and bilateral loans; extremely limited access or at usurious rates to financial markets; more restrictive pressure for the immediate taking of drastic recovery measures which will be unbearable for the mass of poor people of our people; an even more gloomy business climate. »
To all those who asked to wait before taking stock of the action of the regime resulting from the March 2024 alternation, we cannot help but oppose this tangible result: an unprecedented deterioration of the financial reputation and economy of Senegal after the first six months of the mandate.
If Ousmane Sonko’s objective was to destroy the Senegal label, he achieved it brilliantly. It was, in fact, difficult to do better to damage the economy of this country.
The figures for the budget deficit and the debt-to-GDP ratio put forward by Ousmane Sonko – the challenge to which earned me two days in police custody – produced effects more destructive than destruction.
While the Senegalese no longer see the devil pulling their tail, this degraded rating pushes back even further the horizon of an exit from the economic crisis.
On this register, at least, you have succeeded, Mr. Prime Minister.
Your resounding press conference produced an effect more devastating than devastation. Hats off, boss! Well done, Mr. Sonko!
* By Cheikh Yérim Seck
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