According to Le Quotidien, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) asked President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his teams to lower revenue forecasts for the 2024 Budget.
The government mission staying in Washington to discuss with Senegal's financial partners was confronted with this “cold shower” from the IMF, thus calling into question the budgetary framework for the current financial year.
The IMF estimates that expected revenues from oil exploitation will not meet expectations. The hopes of additional revenues which had been integrated into the 2024 budget, thanks to oil exploitation, have dissipated.
In the multi-year budgetary and economic programming document published in July 2022, Senegal planned to collect, between 2023 and 2025, 888 billion CFA francs in revenues from oil exploitation. However, all these forecasts now appear to be in jeopardy, representing a major blow to public finance officials.
Sources close to the partner companies for the exploitation of the Sangomar deposit confirm that the start of exploitation is maintained for the end of June 2024, but that the first months will not allow optimal production. In fact, we will have to wait until the end of 2024 for operations to become truly profitable.
These sources explain that the first barrels of oil pumped are often tainted by elements such as mud or other rock sediments, requiring the extraction of large quantities to access commercial-grade crude oil.
Source: https://www.senenews.com/
Senenews (SENEGAL)
