Senegal’s parliament will take a second look at a revised 2026 budget that the ruling party’s own lawmakers rejected, a vote that now holds up a planned $2.2 billion programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). On Tuesday 27 October, Finance Minister Cheikh Diba asked the National Assembly to reconsider the text. Speaker Ousmane Sonko, who leads the Pastef party, referred it back to the finance committee and said he would set dates for committee work and the next plenary session, Reuters reported. The IMF has not yet announced approval of the programme by its Executive Board.
Why the budget matters to the IMF
On 1 September the IMF and Senegal reached a staff-level agreement on a 36-month Extended Credit Facility of about $2.2 billion, equal to 475% of Senegal’s quota, to support its 2026 to 2029 reform plan. The agreement is not final. It still needs approval from IMF management and the Executive Board. It also requires Senegal to take corrective action to support a waiver for misreporting, and the government plans to seek debt treatment.
The programme replaces an earlier $1.8 billion arrangement that the IMF suspended after the government discovered billions of dollars in misreported borrowing by the previous administration. That left debt at 132% of GDP at the end of 2024, according to IMF figures. The revised 2026 budget cuts the growth forecast to 2.7% from roughly 5% and widens the deficit to 7.6% of GDP from 5.4%, Reuters says. Energy subsidies are projected to rise to 790.3 billion CFA francs from 250 billion, according to bne IntelliNews.
A fight inside the ruling camp
The dispute is unusual because the rejection came from the governing party. Pastef holds 130 of the National Assembly’s 165 seats. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye dismissed Sonko as prime minister in May, and Pastef lawmakers then elected Sonko speaker. Faye appointed Ahmadou Al Aminou Lô, a former central bank official, to lead the government. Pastef’s members rejected the revised budget in the finance committee on 23 October.
Pastef said it does not reject the need to revise the budget, but it disagrees with the government’s spending trade-offs and financing methods and says parliament was given insufficient guarantees, AFP reported. Sonko has criticised the government’s proposed debt-resolution mechanism and said his party would accept neither the 2026 revised budget nor the 2027 draft as they stand. Lô has called for talks with Pastef and urged it not to bring the country to a standstill. Diba told lawmakers the situation calls for responsibility and a constructive outcome, and asked for another look.
Pressure outside parliament
The row comes amid high youth unemployment and a cost-of-living crisis. Trade unions began a general strike on 21 October, as the government sought approval for the programme. Senegal’s credibility with lenders also depends on its willingness to act on debt. A long delay would leave the IMF waiting on a government that cannot yet show its own parliament supports the plan. Pastef’s position is that parliament is not a rubber stamp, and that it can back a revision on its own terms.
Three things will show where this goes: the dates the committee sets, whether Pastef votes for a modified text, and when the IMF Board takes up the programme. The 2027 budget, which Sonko has also said he will not accept as drafted, is the next test. More coverage is in our Business section.
