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Senegal’s government has resolved to haul ex-President Macky Sall before a judge, following revelations from the nation’s audit authority that exposed glaring discrepancies in financial records during his tenure—a bombshell dropped on Friday, February 28, 2025.
The accusations paint Sall as the architect of a disastrous fiscal unraveling, with a scathing independent audit dismantling the rosy numbers his administration once touted, jacking up both the national debt and deficit to alarming heights far beyond what was admitted.
Now residing in Morocco since stepping down in 2024, Sall has waved off the uproar over the findings as a partisan witch hunt, a defense that’s failed to quell the storm brewing back home.
Moustapha Sarre, the government’s mouthpiece, didn’t pull punches, suggesting to RFM listeners that Sall, who steered Senegal from 2012 to 2024, might well be the ringleader of a crew that plundered the state. “Justice will catch up with him—he’s the main culprit behind these grave misdeeds,” Sarre insisted, framing the ex-leader’s legacy in stark, unflinching terms.
“Legal proceedings cannot be avoided,” Sarre warned.
Releasedon February 12, 2025, the audit office’s exposé laid bare a financial chasm, spotlighting a 2023 budget shortfall of 12.3 percent—eclipsing the 4.9 percent figure Sall’s team had trumpeted, a gap that’s jolted Senegal’s economic narrative.
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President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who swept into office in March 2024, has vowed to torch the remnants of Sall’s legacy, charting a course toward a fresh, untainted chapter for the West African nation.
Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, a relentless thorn in Sall’s side for years, fired off a pledge last September to dig into what he branded a cesspool of graft shadowing the prior regime—a promise now gaining traction.
In recent months, a wave of ex-officials has been snared in legal nets, with a prominent Sall ally—a legislator—locked up on Thursday, February 27, facing charges of deceit and cash-siphoning.