Senegal’s finance minister says the country wants to complete the IMF program “very quickly”

Senegal’s finance minister stated on Tuesday that the government wants to finalize a program with the International Monetary Fund “very quickly” and that several concerns pertaining to managing the nation’s debt crisis have been resolved.

Following the discovery of billions in debts not disclosed by the previous government by the present leadership, the West African country is attempting to control debts that the Fund estimates would reach 132% of GDP by the end of 2024.

Even while work on an internal probe into how the IMF missed the unreported debt proceeded, the IMF claimed this month that “significant progress” had been made towards a new program, despite freezing a $1.8 billion loan package last year.

Finance Minister Cheikh Diba told MPs on Tuesday that the talks were “going very well” and that there was agreement on a number of topics, including work on “budgetary and debt issues” and data correction.

The International Monetary Fund is “reviewing the work we are doing with them, the proposals we have, the instruments we have developed,” he stated.

According to Diba, “we hope… that we will very quickly finalise a programme with the International Monetary Fund, as this is a pressing need,” and a new IMF mission director is scheduled to begin work in January.

When Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko told a crowd last month that the IMF was pressuring Senegal to restructure its debt—a move Sonko said his government was opposing because it would be a “disgrace”—his tone was very different.

Diba added that Senegal would keep raising money through a variety of methods, such as Eurobonds.