Senegal’s updated budget shows a little larger fiscal deficit
Senegal raised its budget gap for 2025 from 7.08% of GDP to 7.82% of GDP, according to a draft of the revised finance bill seen by Reuters on Thursday.
The rise was caused by a decrease in expected income and an update to the annual GDP, according to the draft bill. It said that changes in the internal budget and problems in the global economy were the main reasons for the change.
“This development is mainly explained by a decline in budget revenues combined with a downward revision of the nominal GDP,” the bill noted.
The West African country just started producing oil and gas, so economic growth is now expected to be 8.0% in 2025, down from 8.8% in 2024.
In September, an audit showed that Senegal’s budget deficit from 2019 to 2023 was more than 10%, which is more than twice what the former government said.
Last year, Senegal admitted that it had lied about its debt and deficit numbers, so the International Monetary Fund stopped sending money to the country through its program with it. The IMF said that talks on a new agreement would not begin until the problem was fixed.
