Senegal Hid Its Debt and Now Its Workers Are Paying For It

Picture a bus driver in Dakar who has spent a decade behind the wheel of a Dem Dikk bus and still cannot cover rent. On the first day of a three-day general strike, that driver stays home. The state's answer is not to sit down and negotiate. It is to put soldiers in the driver's seat. This is the country that is about to host the Youth Olympic Games, the first Olympic sporting event ever held on African soil, and its government would rather fill the streets with uniforms than fill its workers' pockets.

Ask yourself who is paying for the glamour. It is not the officials who signed the budgets. It is the nurse, the teacher, the electricity worker and the municipal clerk who are told, again and again, that there is no money. We are told the state is broke. We are told the books must be balanced. Yet somehow there is always money for the stadium, the ceremonies and the photo opportunities.

Consider the numbers. Senegal's public debt stood at 132 percent of gross domestic product at the end of 2024. Unions allege that part of that burden was concealed by the previous government under former president Macky Sall. If that allegation holds, it is not a bookkeeping error. It is a crime against the public. A government that hides debt from its own citizens is stealing their future one spreadsheet at a time, because every hidden shilling of borrowing becomes a future cut to hospitals, schools and pensions. Who will answer for it? So far, the answer is silence.

The labour grievances are just as stark. Under a new Labour Code promulgated in early September, employers may keep workers on fixed-term contracts for up to four years. Unions want that capped at two. Think about what that means in practice. A young Senegalese graduate can be hired, kept on a temporary contract for four years, never gain the security to rent a flat or start a family, and then be let go before any real protection kicks in. That is not flexibility. It is a permanent probation for an entire generation.

The unions' demands are modest by any honest standard. They want higher pensions. They want the compulsory retirement age raised from 60 to 65, which is a matter of arithmetic in a country where life expectancy has risen and public finances need experienced workers. They want outstanding bonuses paid. They want the housing allowance of 100,000 CFA francs, roughly €153 a month, actually extended as promised. They also want dismissed workers in major state-linked companies reinstated, and they accuse those firms of mass or abusive redundancies. The Front for the Defence of Workers, which brings together thirteen union confederations, says the government signed a national social stability pact in May and then walked away from it. Agreements that are signed in May and abandoned by September are not agreements. They are press releases.

Now look at the government's response. The Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Public Service Reform declared the strike unlawful, claiming the unions had not followed the correct procedures. The Minister, Mamadou Lamine Dianté, has appealed for dialogue. Those two positions cannot both be sincere. You cannot call for talks while labelling the strike illegal and dispatching the military to drive buses. Electricity workers were ordered by official requisition to keep the lights on, and the strike still drew strong participation. The message from Dakar is clear: comply or be overruled. That is not how democracies treat organised labour. Strikes are a democratic right, written into the very labour traditions that Senegal's independence generation fought to build.

Let us be precise about the context. Senegal is not Chad or Burkina Faso. It is a country that, in 2024, showed the continent what peaceful power transfer looks like. When the then president tried to postpone the election in early 2024, Senegal's courts and citizens pushed back, the vote went ahead, and the outgoing leader handed over power. That is the Senegal we should be proud of. It is also why the current crisis matters so much. A democracy that can change leaders peacefully must also be able to change its economic habits, honour its contracts and speak honestly about its debts. Democratic credibility is not built on election days alone. It is built on whether the state keeps its word to the people who keep its lights on.

The IMF programme, a $2.2 billion support package over 36 months, gives Senegal a route out of its fiscal hole. But it also tightens the room for manoeuvre. The government's argument that it cannot afford the unions' demands has some truth in it. Yet the same government is spending on prestige events and tolerating debts that were not properly disclosed. Fiscal discipline is a virtue only when it is applied fairly, with the lenders' scrutiny turned on the waste, the opacity and the cronyism, not only on the nurse's pension.

So what should happen? First, the government must publish a full, independent audit of public debt, including every loan, guarantee and off-balance-sheet obligation accumulated since 2019. Sunlight is the cheapest reform on earth, and it costs nothing but political courage. Second, the state must restore the social stability pact and implement its terms in full, with a published timetable and an independent monitor agreed by unions and employers. Third, the Labour Code's four-year fixed-term limit should be reviewed in genuine tripartite negotiation, where workers, employers and government sit as equals. Fourth, the state should stop using soldiers and emergency requisitions as a substitute for negotiation. Botswana built its prosperity on transparent institutions, consistent rules and a government that respected contracts. Mauritius did it through open markets, independent courts and a social dialogue that has kept labour disputes largely within the bounds of law for decades. Senegal has the talent, the democratic memory and the young population to join that list. What it lacks is the discipline to treat its own workers as partners rather than problems.

Citizens have a role too. Demand that your representatives publish the debt figures. Demand that the social pact be honoured. Support the unions when they fight for lawful, peaceful bargaining, and hold them to the same standard of honesty you expect from the state. Demand transparency from every ministry that asks for patience while spending on ceremonies. And to the Senegalese diaspora, to the civil society groups, to the business leaders who understand that a stable workforce is the foundation of any investment, we say this: silence is complicity. Speak now.

The Youth Olympic Games will open on 31 October. The world will arrive in Dakar with cameras and sponsors and promises about what Africa can do. Let the spectacle be real, but let the people be real too. A stadium is not a country. A medal is not a pension. The true test of this moment will not be the opening ceremony. It will be whether Senegal's government chooses to face the workers it has been ignoring, tell the truth about the debt it inherited and mortgaged, and treat the strike as a call to reform rather than a threat to crush. We are watching, and so are our children. They deserve a government that pays its debts to them before it pays for its show.

Based on reporting by RFI