IMF requires Senegal budget framework before $2.2bn loan
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Sowetan
The IMF is making approval of its $2.2 billion programme for Senegal conditional on implementing agreed measures, including completing the budget framework and correcting hidden debt. Its spokesperson Julie Kozack also demanded financing assurances from the country’s partners, according to Sowetan.
The International Monetary Fund is also asking Senegal to take corrective measures related to the erroneous reporting of hidden debt and obtain financing assurances from its partners before its executive board approves the $2.2 billion loan programme. IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said on Thursday that Senegalese authorities had to implement the policies agreed in the staff-level agreement and comply with their own legal and institutional framework, Reuters reports.
Julie Kozack said the IMF was not taking part in discussions between the Senegalese government and the National Assembly, while saying it respected the country’s constitutional and legal framework. Senegal’s Finance Ministry said the previous week that a parliamentary committee had asked it to withdraw the 2027 budget bill, amid a political confrontation between President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his former prime minister Ousmane Sonko, whose PASTEF party holds a majority in the National Assembly.
The IMF programme is notably intended to support Senegal’s strategy for restructuring a large debt. Debts wrongly declared by the former administration are estimated by analysts at around $13 billion, while the official committee of Senegal’s creditors had not yet been formed, according to Reuters.
