Senegal President exempts himself from new anti-corruption law

President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has vowed to return financial accountability to the Senegalese government after his predecessor left billions of dollars in hidden debt – yet, Faye himself is exempt from new transparency law.

Senegal’s government has presented an amendment that will expand the 2014 asset declaration law for high-ranking public servants.

With the new provision, public prosecutors, investigating judges, local authorities, auditors, and directors of public companies will have to declare their assets at the beginning and end of their tenure.

Previously, the law only applied to senior officials, including the President of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister, ministers, and public accountants handling more than 1 billion CFA francs (€1.5 million).

The reporting threshold will also be lowered from 1 billion to 500 million CFA francs (€760,000) for public budget managers if the National Assembly pass the bill on August 18, 2025.

Opposition sounds the alarm

Yet, opposition politicians have criticised the proposal for leaving President Faye out of the declaration requirements.

“It is the first condition of transparency that the President of the Republic is subject to these requirements”, said Doudou Wade of the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), according to RFI.

Amadou Ba, MP for the ruling party, defended the decision, saying that the Constitutiton only requires the President to declare his assets at the beginning of his term, and that the Constitution overruled other laws.

”This goes beyond the hierarchy of norms and constitutes a special law of exception”, Ba wrote on his Facebook profile Monday.

History of government corruption

Senegal plummeted into a sudden debt crisis after a public audit in february 2024 found that the previous administration under President Macky Sall had understated deficits, pushing the country's end-2023 debt ratio to roughly 100 per cent of GDP, versus the previously reported 74 per cent.

The revelation made the International Monetary Fund freeze disbursements on its program to Senegal, and caused the country’s credit rating to go down to a B minus.

Bassirou Diomaye Faye has cracked down hard on alleged corruption in the previous administration, arresting five former ministers in the process.

Most recently, Sall’s brother-in-law and former Minister of Community Development, Amadou Mansour Faye, was charged with embezzling more than $4.6 million in public funds.