30 billion FCFA in 2024: Nearly double spending of the COVID
Since the end of the pandemic, this item of expenditure had remained on a trend annual bearish until falling below 12 billion in 2023. This spectacular jump of +18 billion per compared to last year, an increase of +149%, or +14.6 billion compared to the COVID year, either an increase of +95.4%, therefore seems quite exceptional.
As a reminder, public administration agents, active and retired, benefit, with their families, partial coverage of their medical expenses (excluding the purchase of medicines). For obtain this coverage, the beneficiary requests a “budget allocation” from the Department of the Balance, a key which then allows him to pay only 20% of the costs, the State covering the 80% remaining. For hospitalizations, the State pays the entire bill and makes a deduction we salary of 20% owed by the agent. This support can also be provided by mutual health insurance companies. to which certain agents are affiliated, in return for a contribution deducted from their salaries that the State completes and pays to these organizations.
The imputed amounts are published every month by the DPEE and the data available, that we analyzed date back to January 2006. This 18-year perspective allows us to see the character unusual for this increase.
Two factors to explain this explosion in 2024
First of all, an amount of 4.5 billion was recorded in the month of January 2024, probably for a regularization compared to the two previous months, November and December 2023, we which a zero amount (0 FCFA) was recorded. This probable regularization could however not not be the only explanation for the very high amount for January 2024 because, as we pointed out in a previous publication, suspicious movements had also been noted on the payroll at the eve of the presidential election.
The other, more obvious factor is the continued increase in spending monthly on this position, since the advent of the new power. Indeed, while the costs monthly hospitalizations of civilian servants have, for several years, been around a billion of FCFA, they have started to grow sustainably since April 2024, going from 1.1 billion to 1.5 then to 1.6, then 1.7 until reaching 2.5 billion FCFA in November, before exploding literally to 9.5 billion in December!
A necessary clarification
In a context of strong uncertainties weighing on the economic situation of the country, and of budgetary and financial room for maneuver which almost no longer exists, to use the expression of President of the Republic, these figures on the hospitalization costs of state agents raise questions problem and must be addressed by the government. It is essential to explain to the Senegalese how we ended up spending nearly 30 billion FCFA on medical costs for 1% of the population, without any relation to the health context.
These unprecedented health expenses must be clarified, the picture of the abysmal deficit of more than 2,200 billion FCFA dug into the 2024 budget - another record historical. If these figures published by the DPEE actually correspond to disbursements intended to settle the medical expenses of civilian servants, then we will have to explain why they reached these proportions. The credibility and success of the PROJECT depends on it. The much-vaunted Vision Senegal 2050 will have no concrete materialization only at the cost of rigorous and transparent management of public funds. The Senegalese must have faith in the way their money is spent if we want to mobilize them around of a national project.
Advocacy for wider access to information financial of the state
Finally, we take advantage of this article to pay dedicated tribute to the agents of the DPEE and the ANSD [National Agency for Statistics and Demography], and thank them for the quality of their work of collecting and disseminating economic and financial data.
We were able to carry out this study, and those that preceded it, thanks to data made public through these two structures. We recall, as we wrote in the article entitled The PROJECT is off to a bad start, that this work is part of a citizen monitoring action and alert to the location of the authorities. This is a rigorous and honest analysis and verification exercise, based exclusively on official and public data. We are therefore launching a plea for access more broad to the financial information of the State - within legal limits, of course - for us allow to do this monitoring and alert work more effectively.