By Toby McIntosh
Editor’s note: this story has been diametrically changed to reflect new information from the IMF about an agreement with Senegal. The previous story said no deal had been reached.
Senegal and the International Monetary Fund have reached agreement on “corrective measures” the Senegalese government will take to “to fully address misreporting” on national debt in the wake of the “hidden debt” crisis, according to an IMF statement to Eye on Global Transparency.
“We have already agreed on a set of corrective measures,” said an IMF spokesperson, adding, “Some have been implemented, while others will require more time to complete.”
“Improved debt reporting” is one agreed-on step, the spokesperson said.
We welcome Senegal’s commitment to transparency and reform, demonstrated through debt reconciliation exercises and an international audit. Corrective measures agreed with IMF staff are progressing—such as improved debt reporting—but further decisive steps are needed to fully address misreporting.
The IMF spokesperson would not provide more detail on the “corrective measures.”
Issuance of a “quarterly consolidated debt bulletins” is envisioned in a World Bank-funded program to support better financial monitoring and more disclosure by the Senegalese government. (See Oct. 14, 2025 EYE article.) But a World Bank official declined to discuss when such bulletins might appear.
The IMF’s indication of an agreement with Senegal comes after Dec. 15 reporting in The Africa Report that Senegal had rejected proposed IMF conditions on debt transparency. The Africa Report said, “A source briefed on the talks says the IMF wants debt monitoring to be public and accessible via an open website reporting directly to the finance minister. Senegal has refused.”
What Corrective Measures Might Include
A previous IMF statement and World Bank documents provide clues on what the corrective measures might look like.
According to an Aug. 26 IMF summary of the talks at that point, “remedial measures” discussed included:
- centralizing debt management functions,
- strengthening the role of the National Public Debt Committee, and
- completing the ongoing comprehensive audit of payment arrears launched by the Inspectorate General of Finance on July 21, 2025.
- Establishing a centralized debt database,
- strengthening budgetary commitment controls, and
- consolidating bank accounts under the Treasury Single Account.
The World Bank Board in June approved a project for Senegal that includes funding for debt management reforms and “debt transparency through better recording and reporting.”
More specifically, the project includes:
- Establishing a new debt recording system aligned with internationally recognized good practices.
- Establishing a single responsible debt management entity centralizing all debt functions (a clear back-office, middle-office and front-office functions) negotiating, reporting and monitoring of all borrowing.
- Conducting debt records reconciliation with creditors, at least on an annual basis.
- Preparing quarterly consolidated debt bulletins with more granularity (loan-by-loan
- information on new loans contracts, PPP related guarantees, loans guaranteed by beneficiaries, and stock of arrears) than previous debt bulletins. (PPP refers to public-private partnerships.)
The $115 million effort, known as SEN-FISCALE (Strengthening Senegal’s Fiscal Sustainability Program) is just beginning, but the documents describe the goals and deliverables. (All documents about the project.)
Transparency About Causes Not Pushed by the IMF
The IMF spokesperson said the IMF has not told Senegal what to disclose about the causes of the $13 billion hidden debt problem, which was revealed in late 2023 and later confirmed Senegal’s Court of Audit.
The private company Forvis Mazars prepared a major audit of the hidden debt, concluded in July, that has not been disclosed by Senegal. Asked if the IMF supports release of the Forvis Mazars report, the IMF spokesperson said the IMF “continues to support good practices in terms of data compilation and dissemination.” She declined to define “good practices.”
The Forvis Mazars report has informed an IMF staff report being prepared for the IMF Board. But such IMF reports are not typically made public.
The spokesperson confirmed that the IMF is conducting an internal review of whether IMF officials missed signs of the hidden debt problem. She said the Fund “will communicate the main lessons publicly.”
IMF officials have not always used the term “misreporting” for the $13 billion in external debt accumulated over three years by the previous government, but instead described intentionally misleading activity.
In March, the main IMF official in talks with Senegal, Eddy Gemayel, said the challenge was how to prevent a reoccurrence of “a very conscious decision to underestimate the debt stock.” And in another interview he said, “The inspectorate general of finance and the audit court have clearly shown there was an explicit intention to hide these debts.” Back in March, the IMF said it was looking for “urgent reforms” from Senegal, according to a March 26 IMF statement.
Negotiations are continuing, mainly focused on future IMF financial support for Senegal. Technical talks are ongoing, the IMF spokesman said, and a new IMF Mission Chief replacing Gemayel, Mercedes Vera-Martin “will set a new timeline for any visits or major steps early next year.”
The Africa Report Says More Transparency Unlikely
New reporting in The Africa Report suggests that some members of the current government bear some responsibility and so have little interest in post hoc transparency.
Two investigative articles on the hidden debt were done by Marième Soumaré, Fatoumata Diallo and Thaïs Brouck. See Senegal’s ‘hidden debt’: High-level game of smoke and mirrors (Dec. 10) and Senegal’s ‘hidden debt’ scandal: In search of the missing billions (Dec. 15).
The reporters quote a unnamed source “involved in the negotiations between the IMF and Dakar” as saying that “certain current political officials” who served in the previous administration “are implicated and seem to have no interest in full light being shed on this affair.”
They report, “The existence of this debt was known to numerous senior officials still in office.” According to several people they interviewed, the current minister of finance and budget, Cheikh Diba, is among them.” Diba, according to The Africa Report, opposed releasing information about the hidden debt in 2024, even threatening to resign. Africa Reports notes his personal closeness to Senegal’s president Bassirou Diomaye Faye and recounts his career in government, including in the previous administration. The article says, “He has, in effect, occupied central roles in the state’s financial apparatus for a decade.” Diba would not comment to The Africa Report.
Another former top finance official, Mamadou Moustapha Ba, was called “the father of this hidden debt,” by “a source close to the former president,” according to The Africa Report.
However, on Oct. 8, 2024, shortly after the hidden debt was revealed and six months after he left office, the ex-minister was found dead in Paris. “Investigations by the French judiciary, whose findings were forwarded to Senegalese authorities, state that the former finance minister threw himself under a metro train,” according to The Africa Report. But later statements from Senegalese officials and relatives have questioned the suicide explanation, The Africa Report said.
Ba’s role was alleged by an official now involved in the talks with the IMF, Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo. In a former job as an official with the bank that handed foreign currency for Senegal, Lo has said that he and others, including the IMF, alerted Ba “telling them to be careful, that inconsistencies were coming to our attention.”
Lo said officials of the previous administration “admitted that their debt was linked to loans contracted by the State,” according to an television interview he did in February of 2024.
The Africa Report quotes “a source familiar with the IMF negotiations,” as saying, “What intrigues me is that these individuals who were in charge under Macky Sall [the former president], and who effectively share a part of the responsibility, are still in office today, or have even been promoted.” The source commented, “Under these conditions, can one truly speak of a ‘hidden debt’?” A spokesperson for the former Sall administration quoted by The Africa Report disputed that there was hidden debt, saying, “Not only is the Supreme Court consulted for its opinion when the country seeks to take on a loan, but these loan proposals also appear in finance laws, which are public.”
The Africa Report concluded its first report with questions:
Nevertheless, under pressure from the Senegalese executive, the phrase ‘hidden debt’ is now used in the IMF’s official statements. And Sonko [Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko] no longer hesitates to threaten legal action against anyone who rejects the term. In the meantime, several questions remain unanswered: Where did the money come from? How was it spent? And how will Senegal ever be able to pay it back?
The second Africa Report article says the higher debt was generated by former president Sall as “a late-term investment surge as the former president weighed seeking a third mandate.”
The article also discusses threats by current Senegalese officials of legal action against former officials, which have not materialized.
Need for Debt Transparency Seen
A detailed examination of Senegal’s debt relying on public figures by Martin Kessler was published Dec. 8 by Development Finance Lab, where he is Executive Director.
“What are some lessons?” he asked. “First, that the work on debt transparency – including the publication of contracts (#PublicDebtIsPublic ) and transactions is more urgent than ever.”
Kessler continued:
Second, this case also illustrates the importance of the world of the World Bank to trace transactions when they occur, and reconcile them automatically with those of creditors (the Automated Creditor/Debtor Loan Reconciliation Platform). The Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable co-chairs report introduced such a system of which was piloted by Indonesia. Accountability is necessary for the debtor, but also for creditors. What this investigation shows is the utter failure of the system to cross validate its data.
Kessler said the IMF “clearly missed alarms.”
Internal IMF Inquiry Ongoing
The IMF has begun an internal inquiry into whether IMF officials missed signs with the intention of disclosing “the main lessons.”
The spokesperson said: “The review is underway, and we will finalize it as soon as possible. Our focus is on conducting it thoroughly and carefully.”
She said further, “The IMF is committed to transparency, and consistent with standard practice, we will communicate the main lessons publicly.”
The review aims “to understand how these discrepancies went undetected and to reinforce safeguards against similar lapses.”
The IMF said it is focused on three areas:
- Examining our data integrity frameworks
- Strengthening internal review processes to improve detection of anomalies
- Enhancing internal training for staff to better identify misreporting cases
Weaknesses Within Senegal Seen
The hidden debt crisis has “exposed the weaknesses of institutional oversight, which aims to ensure transparency and the proper management of public finances,” according to Demba Moussa Dembélé, who wrote Hidden Billions: The Scandal of Senegal’s Concealed Public Debt, published Nov. 16 by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Dembélé is an economist and researcher, President of the African Association for Research and Cooperation in Support of Endogenous Development (ARCADE).
Among the key oversight organizations, he wrote, are public institutions, parliament, and civil society organizatons such as the Citizens’ Network for Budget Transparency.
Regarding the Senegalese parliament, Dembélé says, “most members of parliament do not understand budget processes,” and “the parliament is usually a rubberstamp institution because the ruling party or coalition controls the assembly, which is then reluctant to scrutinise what the government does.”
“As for CSOs, most of them have limited knowledge of budget processes and limited access to debt statistics,” he states.
Dembélé calls it “crucial” to enforce compliance a 2012 Senegalese law that was based on the Code of Transparency for the management of public finances issued by the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) for its member countries through the Guideline 01/2009/CM/UEMOA.
He also recommends that the National Committee on Public Debt “should have its role strengthened to coordinate debt management strategies and foster inter-institutional collaboration.” Capacity-building initiatives could empower key stakeholders in parliament and CSOs, he says.
Dembélé also points out that two new laws, to protect whistleblowers and facilitate public access to information, if correctly implemented, would promote transparency, accountability and stronger oversight mechanisms, “which will effectively eliminate the possibility of concealing external debt statistics.”
The international CSO Civicus on Dec. 9 upgraded Senegal in its ratings of civic freedom, from the lower tier, “Repressed,” to the middle tier “Obstructed.” An “Obstructed” rating means civic space is heavily contested, with legal and practical barriers hindering civil society activities. Civicus noted “repeated violations of press freedom.”
World Bank Saw Systemic Issues
The World Bank’s 2019 Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment of Senegal and a 2024 Assessment identified “systemic weaknesses in the areas of public accounting and financial reporting, treasury management, and public procurement.” The statements are part of the documentation for a $115 million effort, known as SEN-FISCALE (Strengthening Senegal’s Fiscal Sustainability Program). (All documents about the project.)
“The findings of the audit report” the Bank said, are also a legacy of a historical environment characterized by a lack of integrity and by corruption, combined with a strong resistance to change among the ‘street-level’ bureaucrat.”
A thumbnail analysis of causes of the hidden debt in a World Bank Project Information Document from April 23, 2025, says:
Key under-reporting sources relate to: (i) undisclosed expenditures financed by project loans; (ii) extra-budgetary expenditure; and (iii) goods and services expenditure financed by domestic bank credit lines not included as debt in the fiscal framework and non-regularized Treasury advances.
Past EYE articles on Senegal:
IMF, World Bank Promises on Debt Transparency to Be Tested in Senegal, Oct. 14, 2025
Under-Estimated External Debt in Senegal Highlights Ongoing Debt Transparency Challenge, April 3, 2025.
IMF Official Pledges to Use ‘Sharpened Claws’ for Sovereign Debt Transparency, May 25, 2025.
