{"id":6966,"date":"2026-06-16T15:06:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T15:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/home\/sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis"},"modified":"2026-06-21T01:29:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T01:29:34","slug":"sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/economy\/sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis","title":{"rendered":"Sonko: Government must Act on Debt Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"ap-article-header-tag\"> <strong>Africa-Press. <\/strong> <\/span>Former Senegalese Prime Minister, Ousmane Sonko, softened his tone regarding debt restructuring in an interview broadcast on Monday, stating that he does not take &#8220;hardline positions&#8221; on this issue, marking a shift from his previous strong opposition to such measures.<\/p>\n<p>While he was dismissed by President Macky Sall, who dissolved the government last month, lawmakers later voted to appoint Sonko as the head of the National Assembly, granting him significant influence to affect government policy.<\/p>\n<p>In his new position, Sonko may have considerable power to obstruct Sall&#8217;s agenda, including the potential to resist the reforms required for the new International Monetary Fund program. A team from the IMF is expected to resume talks this week regarding a new lending program.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Radio France Internationale (RFI) and France 24, Sonko stated that policymakers must respond practically to the worsening debt crisis in the country, which has been exacerbated by misleading debt data during the previous administration of President Macky Sall.<\/p>\n<p>Sonko said, &#8220;We do not take rigid positions in the absolute sense, but we study the situation clearly,&#8221; adding that any solution must &#8220;meet the requirements of the current moment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>These statements represent a shift from his position last November when he said at a large rally that the IMF was pushing for debt restructuring, calling it a &#8220;shame.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The IMF had suspended its previous lending program for Senegal worth $1.8 billion after the exposure of misleading debt data.<\/p>\n<p>Sonko stated that he opposed &#8220;reckless restructuring,&#8221; justifying that it was unnecessary because Senegal was meeting its debt repayment obligations and had good growth prospects. However, he acknowledged that conditions have deteriorated since then, partly due to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. He said, &#8220;I believe today that we are capable of assessing developments step by step. We are not here to obstruct any progress.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, Sonko warned that he would reject any approach that undermines Senegal&#8217;s long-term economic goals, emphasizing that measures focused solely on short-term indicators are unacceptable. The West African nation is facing debts amounting to 132% of its gross domestic product by the end of 2024, according to the IMF.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-article-footer-note\">Find more news and analyses on <span class=\"ap-highlight-country\">Africa<\/span> on the <span class=\"ap-highlight-brand\">Africa Press<\/span> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press. Former Senegalese Prime Minister, Ousmane Sonko, softened his tone regarding debt restructuring in an interview broadcast on Monday, stating that he does not take &#8220;hardline positions&#8221; on this issue, marking a shift from his previous strong opposition to such measures. While he was dismissed by President Macky Sall, who dissolved the government last month, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":6965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[120],"class_list":{"0":"post-6966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-africa"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sonko: Government must Act on Debt Crisis - Africa Press English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former Senegalese Prime Minister, Ousmane Sonko, softened his tone regarding debt restructuring in an\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/economy\/sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sonko: Government must Act on Debt Crisis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former Senegalese Prime Minister, Ousmane Sonko, softened his tone regarding debt restructuring in an\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/economy\/sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Africa Press English\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-16T15:06:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-06-21T01:29:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/africa-home\/sites\/69\/2026\/06\/sm_1782005316.362818.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"540\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/economy\/sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/economy\/sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Sonko: Government must Act on Debt Crisis\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-16T15:06:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-06-21T01:29:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/economy\/sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis\"},\"wordCount\":375,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/economy\/sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/africa-home\/sites\/69\/2026\/06\/sm_1782005316.362818.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Economy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/economy\/sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/economy\/sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/en\/economy\/sonko-government-must-act-on-debt-crisis\",\"name\":\"Sonko: Government must Act on Debt Crisis - 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