Senegal will summon former president Macky Sall to court after the west African country’s audit office unveiled irregularities in the treasury’s bookkeeping on his watch, a government spokesman said on Friday.
Sall is accused of having presided over a “catastrophic” mismanagement of the public purse after an independent report invalidated official figures under his stewardship, revising both debt and the public deficit sharply upwards.
Sall, who has lived in Morocco since leaving office last year, has rejected the row over the report as “political”.
Government spokesman Moustapha Sarre said Sall, who ruled Senegal between 2012 and 2024, “could even be considered as the leader of a gang that committed criminal acts”.
“Inevitably he will face justice. He is the person chiefly responsible for the extremely serious acts that were committed,” Sarre told broadcaster RFM.
“Legal proceedings cannot be avoided,” Sarre warned.
Published on February 12, the audit office’s report found accounting discrepancies such as a 2023 budget deficit of 12.3 percent — more than double the 4.9 percent announced under Sall.
Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was elected president last March, has pledged a clean break from the Sall era.
Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko — a longtime opponent of Sall’s — promised last September to investigate what he said was “widespread corruption” under the previous administration.
Several former officials have been charged and imprisoned in recent months, including a lawmaker close to Sall on fraud and money laundering charges on Thursday.
