Since May 2024, Assane Mbengue has been at the wheel of the Dakar Dem Dikk company. At the dawn of this year 2025, the general director declines the major projects of the public transport company; from the “smart bus” to painting vehicles in national colors. But “Dakar Dem Dikk” is a company supervised by the state. In this interview, Mr. Mbengue discusses the financial situation, the bloated workforce, the debts, etc.
Interview carried out by Babacar Guèye DIOP (text) and Moussa SOW (photos)
A few days ago, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko mentioned, in his General Policy Declaration, the case of Dakar Dem Dikk. Is the company in a critical financial situation?
The financial situation is critical with very high debt. Today, one of the projects for 2025, and the Prime Minister announced it, is to work on the restructuring of “Dakar Dem Dikk”. We started this project by trying to optimize the resources available. When a business operates with limited resources, they must be used optimally. This is what we are doing. We reduced the departments from 12 to 9, eliminated or rationalized certain expenses.
How much debt does Dakar Dem Dikk have?
It is around 130 billion FCfa. All Dakar Dem Dikk park acquisitions are made with State assistance. The company did not generate enough money to buy its buses. On Ipres, the debt is around 17 billion FCfa. This is almost 60% of the company’s annual budget. The tax debt is more than 3 billion FCfa while for the Social Security Fund, it is around 700 million. The State must help us pay these debts.
For housing cooperatives, contributions were deducted at source, but the amounts were not paid to the recipients. We have committed to repaying this debt over a period of 12 months. For five months, we have been making regular payments of around 58 million FCfa per month.
Is there a social plan in Dakar Dem Dikk?
We do not prefer the term social plan, although we are obliged to make the company productive and efficient by optimizing resources. However, overstaffing is a problem.
What is the number of agents?
Today, if we include service providers, we have around 3,000 agents.
For what monthly payroll?
For more than 800 million FCfa. The problem is not just the overstaffing, there is an inadequacy of resources in relation to the real needs of the company. For example, it is difficult for me to release the number of buses I want because of a lack of drivers and conductors even though the buses are available. The choices made in recruitment were not very efficient. The recruitment was political. People are recruited with permanent contracts at the expense of older ones. This situation has implications for the payroll.
How do you manage this bloated workforce which does not meet the needs of the company?
We certainly found a bloated workforce, but we tried to get the best out of each agent. Production time was not optimized. When I arrived, the company had just under 50,000 Senegalese traveling per day. Today, the latest ratios show 110,000 travelers per day. That’s more than double in six months.
Have daily revenues increased?
They have doubled. We went from almost 25 million FCfa to 52 million. A huge amount of work is being done.
Have you made any layoffs?
No. Although I found providers. Our approach was to go with moderation. Service providers have been there since 2017. From a legal point of view, if they attack the company, they can win their case. A service provider who has worked since 2017 must have had a permanent contract. For these service providers, we have initiated the regularization process with the agreement of our Board of Directors. We preferred to keep them, observe and measure them until the end of the year. We are taking action on other expenses to reduce or rationalize our payroll. Managerial staff are also affected.
Where are you with the intermodality project between Dakar Dem Dikk, the Ter and the Brt?
We found this project on site. But before arriving at a unified mode of transport for a global service offering, it was necessary to stabilize Dakar Dem Dikk. With our limited resources, we manage to accommodate more than 110,000 passengers per day in the city. This figure does not take into account travelers from Senegal Dem Dikk, nor the shuttle to Blaise Diagne International Airport. It was better to strengthen this service, to structure it, before moving towards intermodality with the Ter and the Brt.
What have you done since your arrival to strengthen the African Dem Dikk and Senegal Dem Dikk lines?
For Afrique Dem Dikk, there are opening projects in other countries. For the moment, only the service to Gambia is functional. The Nouakchott axis is under study. We are waiting for the delivery of the Rosso bridge to launch this line. If the resources are sufficient, we plan to go as far as Morocco and other countries in the sub-region such as the two Guineas and Mali. For Senegal Dem Dikk, efforts are being made such as stabilizing the service and refocusing our travelers’ reservations. In relation to the network, we serve the 14 regions. Senegal Dem Dikk is one of the services for which we have more satisfaction because we have exponential demand.
What are the prospects for 2025?
We presented an intelligent bus which does not only provide classic transport. Today, we want to improve the travel experience with our customers by simplifying the way they interact with the means of transport. Example: you have a card with an amount like 10,000 FCfa. You enter the service and you have agents who validate. Simply place the card and the scan will calculate the section and the amount will be taken from the account. If this service is operational, we will no longer need the presence of a conductor on the bus. Today, the receiver only exists in a few countries, including Senegal. The recipients will be redeployed elsewhere. The smart bus was presented to the authorities. The device was installed and tested for 2 months in Dakar. We had more than 90% satisfaction with the tests carried out.
Will the buses be painted in the Pastef color?
(Laughs) No. They will be in national colors. Officers will be trained on these new buses. We spoke with 3Fpt. Afterwards, we intend to raise the technical level of our depots, in particular that of Ouakam. We have 22 station points in Dakar and we want customers to realize that they are operating in the Dakar Dem Dikk environment. We also want to modernize the Blaise Diagne International Airport station. Part is already delivered. At Liberté 5, we are going to do the same thing to satisfy customer demand.
For Senegal Dem Dikk, with the erection of the poles set out in the “Senegal 2050” vision, there will be a modern station in each pole with living spaces. We want to create sub-networks in these clusters linked to the five corridors to allow these clusters to interact. Our teams are working on it, as part of a strategic development plan which will be delivered before the end of the first quarter of this year.
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