In a press release published on November 1, 2024, the SAAM SA KADDU coalition questions Senegal’s bond issues and over-indebtedness. Indeed, the new State loan is controversial and sparks debate.
“Since June 2024, bond issues have followed one another, like so many hammer blows on the economic fragility of the country. The most resounding maneuver was the Euro bond of 450 billion FCFA, issued with alarming casualness, whose spinoffs were significantly less brilliant than the previous shows. In 2021, in the midst of a health crisis, Senegal managed to raise 508 billion FCFA over a period of 16 years, with a rate of 5.3%.
Today, it is not even certain that the revenues collected can compensate for the collapse of our national treasury. The latest estimate of the amount of debt under the Diomaye era is more than 1100 billion in 7 months,” we recalled.
Before attesting that “civil society organizations, far from being reassured, have even raised the possibility of hidden commissions, raising embarrassing questions.
According to the Samm Sa Kaddu coalition, which is saddened by this situation, “this excessive over-indebtedness has led to unsustainable debt service. The accumulation of debt service, personnel costs, and subsidies consume a large part of the ordinary revenues of the State of Senegal.
It should be noted, according to press release N24/329 dated September 12, 2024, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made the following findings: slowdown in economic activity during the first half of the year with similar prospects until at the end of 2024. This situation is caused by a drop in tax and customs revenue and an increase in expenditure (subsidies and debt services), slower growth than expected due to the difficulties of the mining and construction, a budget deficit projected at 7.5% well beyond the 3.9% planned in the initial budget, a debt higher than the WAEMU convergence criterion set at 70% of GDP.
For its members of the opposition Sam Sa Kaddu coalition, “This gloomy picture of the Senegalese economy established by the IMF will necessarily lead to a deterioration in the living conditions of the populations due to the removal of subsidies on electricity, hydrocarbons and essential foodstuffs. “In the meantime, Senegal must now expect to repay 8,125 billion FCFA between 2025 and 2027, a mountain that crushes our economic horizon and makes bitter the promises of a “renaissance” that we were sold. So what are these commitments worth if we do not have the courage to break with this toxic dependence on debt, in favor of an autonomy that would have restored the hope of an entire people? », he asks.
