In Senegal, the judicial vice is tightening over time Macky Sall | EUROtoday

L‘Accounts time has certainly sounded in Senegal. After the marketing campaign guarantees and the primary surveys, the time for authorized proceedings has imposed itself, strongly mobilizing the judicial system in latest weeks. Since its set up in April 2024, the brand new energy has given an accelerator to the accountability, particularly by the monetary judicial pool (PJF), instituted in September to interchange the extremely criticized CREI. In seven months, this construction processed 292 monetary information, led to the arrest of 260 folks and enabled the seizure of 15 billion FCFA (22.8 million euros), in response to its prosecutor, El Hadji Alioune Abdoulaye Sylla. A rhythm that displays the extent of the hunt engaged in opposition to embezzlement and which ought to nonetheless intensify, whereas a number of surveys are underway, together with overseas.

Among these, two information are very scrutinized by the inhabitants. First of all that of alleged embezzlement of the Riposte Fund in opposition to the COVVI-19 (2020-2021). Five ministers and dozens of individuals have been charged with supposed embezzlement and overcharges, already revealed in a report by the Court of Auditors of December 2022.

Another judicial entrance: a proposal for decision geared toward persevering with former president Macky Sall for “high treason” was filed within the National Assembly, on April 15, by deputy Guy Marius Sagna. It is predicated on a report by the Court of Auditors printed in February, which factors to robust variations between official figures and the fact of public debt and funds deficit below its mandate.Read too Senegal: the IMF reveals a “hidden” debt of $ 7 billion below Macky Sall

Decreases and irregularities within the administration of the COVVI-19 Fund

Five former ministers of the Macky Sall regime may quickly be prosecuted by the High Court of Justice for suspicions of diversion linked to the Riposte Fund in opposition to the COVVI-19. The National Assembly voted for his or her referral to this courtroom, the one one empowered to evaluate the offenses accused of ministers within the train of their capabilities. “This is a truly exceptional procedure,” stated the Attorney General on the Dakar Court of Appeal, Mbacké Fall, throughout a press convention, evoking “serious presumptions of embezzlement of public funds”. And to recall: “All the ministers who acted and committed offenses in the exercise of their functions are justiciable before this high court. »»

Faced with the extent of the irregularities revealed, the arrests in all environments, the summons and the judicial controls have succeeded at a recently supported rate. Twenty-seven other other people, including senior health officials and public figures, are also charged with alleged acts of “embezzlement of public funds, fraud, concussion and corruption” concerning this fund intended to support populations and public structures between 2020 and 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic. And that shouldn’t weaken. “Research continues to establish all people, from all personalities at no matter stage they’re, to hope to cowl these deniers as soon as once more unjustly, illegally and unworthiness robbed to the Senegalese folks,” said the public prosecutor, Ibrahima Ndoye.

These “administration faults and legal offenses” had already been stretched in a report by the Court of Public Accounting in December 2022. It then appeared that this fund of 740 billion FCFA (1.2 billion euros), funded by international donors and the Senegalese State, had been the subject of numerous “overcharges, absences of justification, conflicts of curiosity and bills unrelated”. In total, the addition amounted to a lack of approximately 20 billion FCFA (30 million euros).

Civil society then mobilized to claim accounts on these alleged cases of “corruption and abuse of operate”, in particular through the launch of a petition launched by the collective “Sunu billions Doue” (our billions will not disappear) which demanded the opening of judicial information as well as the reimbursement of the diverted amounts. It is therefore not possible to say that the opening of these legal proceedings was more than expected by the Senegalese.

While the identities of the concerned had not been revealed by the magistrates, the former minister of community development and brother-in-law of Macky Sall, Mansour Faye, as well as the former industrial minister Moustapha Diop would be among the first to be presented to justice. The first is now forbidden to leave Senegalese territory for its supposed role in the management of the COVVI-19 fund. Its former general administrative director and equipment is continued for overcharging of 2.7 billion FCFA (4 million euros) of rice bags for populations.

Macky Sall and his relatives under the fire of legal proceedings

Another burning file that agitates public opinion and political circles: the proposal to indict the ex-president Macky Sall for “information more likely to be excessive treason inside the framework of the train of his presidential capabilities” filed by Guy Marius Sagna in the National Assembly, on April 15. For the deputy of the Pastef group, the facts revealed by the report of the Court of Auditors last February – an abyssal public debt ($ 7 billion) and a considerable budget deficit – constitute probative elements of “opaque administration” and “accounting manipulations” of the old regime, in “violation of the rules of transparency”. “More than 2.5 billion FCFA (3 million euros) had been contracted exterior of any authorized circuit, with out parliamentary authorization or registration within the finance legislation”, points out the deputy, also highlighting a massive and irregular use of deposit accounts with the Treasury. So many sufficient evidence according to him for the former president to be tried before the High Court of Justice, installed since December 2024. It would then be a first for the country: no head of state has been prosecuted within the framework of his former functions so far. To be selected, the proposal must be adopted by the majority of 3/5^e deputies, 99 votes. But despite a large majority acquired in the Pastef party in the hemicycle, it is unlikely to succeed, in particular because the definition of “excessive treason” would be non -existent in the Senegalese laws.

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Beyond that, this proposal solely revives the need extensively claimed by the ability since taking workplace, that of continuous Macky Sall in justice. At the top of February, the federal government spokesperson and Minister of Vocational Training, Moustapha Njekk Sarré, assured him in an interview with native RFM radio: “Inevitably, he’ll face justice. He is the primary extraordinarily critical acts supervisor who was made. We may even take into account him because the gang chief who dedicated legal acts. Relatives and former figures of the Old Regime, accused of corruption and private enrichment, are additionally within the viewfinder of the authorities and focused by these account redditions.

For Takku Wallu Senegal, the parliamentary group nonetheless led by Macky Sall, this proposal is a “low maneuver aimed at tarnishing the international image and reputation”, which he guarantees to stop. For his half, the previous head of state reacted within the journal Young Africa : “I completely enroll in false in opposition to these allegations of falsifications. »»