Senegal: overview of corruption and anti-corruption

Query

• Please provide an overview of corruption and anti-corruption in Senegal. We are particularly interested in information on the factors explaining Senegal’s recent improvement on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the areas where it has continued vulnerability to corruption.

Summary

Senegal is a strong regional performer on measures of perceptions of corruption. This result comes from long-term development processes, principally traditions of respect for the rule of law and competitive democratic government. Corruption, nevertheless, remains a significant societal problem in Senegal, and is only gradually reducing as the country’s economic and political development continues.

Main points

• Senegal has registered gains on the CPI since 2012. The change in political regime and initial optimism around the anti-corruption campaign launched are the most important explanatory factors for the recent improvement in public perceptions.
• Measures taken by the government include the creation of new anti-corruption institutions and sanctioning past abuses. There are, nonetheless, concerns that the scope and depth of the anti-corruption measures have been influenced by political considerations. These institutions are at a formative stage.
• Practices of clientelism and grand corruption are persistent, although administrative corruption is believed to be substantively lower than in other countries in the region. Public procurement has been a focus of past abuses and remains a major risk area.

Contents

1. Overview of corruption in Senegal
2. Overview of anti-corruption in Senegal
3. Legal and institutional framework
4. Analysis: an anti-corruption success story?
5. References

Authors

Thomas Shipley, [email protected]

Reviewer:

Samuel Kaninda, Transparency International

Date

15/02/2019

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