Senegal budget dispute deepens as committee seeks bill withdrawal

Senegal's finance ministry said on Thursday that a parliamentary committee had asked it to withdraw the 2027 budget bill, intensifying a political stand-off ‌that could delay a new $2.2 billion International Monetary Fund programme. The move is the latest twist in a dispute between President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his former prime minister Ousmane Sonko that has spilled into the budget process.

Senegal's National Assembly previously rejected an amended budget for 2026. The two ‌budget bills are key to advancing the IMF programme, which underpins the West African country's strategy to rework its massive debt burden. Sonko's ‌PASTEF party holds a majority in the National Assembly, complicating Faye's efforts to pass legislation central to the IMF programme.

Senegal's finances have been in crisis since 2024, when the government discovered debts misreported by the previous administration that analysts peg at some $13 billion, one of the largest hidden debt cases on the continent. The finance ministry on ⁠Thursday accused ​the finance committee of deliberately trying to ⁠obstruct the president's effort to restore Senegal's finances and stabilize its economy.

"The ministry considers this series of initiatives to be tantamount to obstructionist tactics aimed, in particular, ⁠at undermining the consolidation of public finances, economic recovery, the clearance of payment arrears," the ministry said in a statement. It also said the committee's letter argued that ​the National Assembly's rejection of the amended 2026 budget undermined the baseline assumptions underpinning the 2027 bill.

The committee later said in ⁠a statement that it had contacted the ministry in the spirit of institutional dialogue and that the government alone has the authority to withdraw or maintain the bill. The amended ⁠2026 ​budget bill paints a sharply deteriorating fiscal picture, cutting real GDP growth to 2.7% from roughly 5%, and widening the deficit to 7.6% of GDP from 5.4%, driven largely by a tripling of energy subsidies to 790.3 billion CFA francs ($1.36 billion).

Leeuwner Esterhuysen, senior economist at ⁠Oxford Economics Africa, said avenues remained to resolve the standoff amicably, including addressing PASTEF's demands for greater transparency. "But the longer it goes on, ⁠the more likely it becomes ⁠that we will see the sides resort to their more extreme alternative options," said Esterhuysen.

These could include Sonko pushing a vote of no confidence or Faye opting to dissolve the National Assembly, he added. ($1 = ‌580.0000 CFA francs)