Senegal debt servicing projections for years ahead rise sharply, document shows

By Portia Crowe and Libby George

DAKAR (Reuters) -Senegal has raised its projections of debt service payments by about 3.2 trillion CFA francs ($5.8 billion) for the next three years in a revised budget document published last week.

The West African country’s government is grappling with billions of dollars in debt that was not reported by the previous administration, the announcement of which last year led the International Monetary Fund to freeze its $1.8 billion lending programme.

Total payments on principal and interest for 2026 were projected at 5.49 trillion CFA in the revised document, an increase of more than 11% from the June projections.

For 2027, the total debt service figure jumped nearly a third to 4.41 trillion CFA while for 2028, the total soared by nearly 50% to 4.97 trillion CFA.

The revised document was released ahead of the IMF’s next mission to Senegal, which is scheduled from October 22 to November 4, an IMF spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters.

It was not immediately clear why the government had revised the figures higher. A spokeswoman for Senegal’s finance ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The finance ministry released the updated budget document during the Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, where Senegal began negotiations with the Fund over a new lending programme.

Senegal also needs the IMF board to sign off on a waiver related to the previously unreported debt.

Investors are closely watching both discussions, as well as the IMF’s debt sustainability analysis – which will determine what the country must do in order to secure more lending and whether the IMF deems its current level of debts as manageable or in need of reprofiling or restructuring.

The IMF spokesperson said that Senegal’s debt-to-GDP ratio – including central government debt, debt held by state-owned enterprises and domestic arrears – stood at 132% at the end of 2024.

(Reporting by Libby George in London and Portia Crowe in Dakar; Editing by Karin Strohecker and Alexandra Hudson)