Madar (Dakar) - Senegal's parliament on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, rejected the amended finance bill for 2026, seen as crucial to fixing the public finances of the heavily indebted country, the independent Alakhbar agency reported.
According to the agency, 109 lawmakers voted to reject the bill out of 132 present from a total of 165, against 20 who opposed rejection and 3 abstentions, in a session chaired by a deputy speaker that saw tension and heated debate. The bill had already been rejected twice at the finance committee stage.
"It is not good to play games. All you have is the pretext of budget credibility to question a bill as important as the amended finance bill," Finance Minister Cheikh Diba said after the vote, as quoted by the agency.
The rejection casts doubt on the $2.2 billion financing agreement signed in September between the Senegalese government and the International Monetary Fund, according to Alakhbar.
The bill was meant to account for a sharp rise in fuel prices, lower expected tax revenue from the government's recovery plan and higher debt service. The government had warned that rejection would threaten electricity supply and the payment of arrears owed to companies and teachers.
Senegal's public debt was estimated at about 132% of GDP at the end of 2024, and the situation is complicated by strained relations between President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and the speaker of parliament, Ousmane Sonko, according to the same source.
