Senegal Corruption Report

There is a fairly high risk of corruption in Senegal’s land administration. Property rights are generally guaranteed and well respected in urban areas of Senegal (BTI 2016). In rural areas, land registration procedures are slow and uncertain and land titles in rural areas are based on traditional rules (BTI 2016). Businesses accordingly report insufficient confidence in the enforcement of the country’s property rights (GCR 2016-2017). The legal defense of property rights is unsatisfactory due to shortcomings in the judiciary including a lack of trained judges which has led to arbitrary and inconsistent judgments (BTI 2016). The Senegalese government has developed a new model to resolve conflicts between customary tenure and formal land ownership, but these have not been widely implemented as of yet (ICS 2017). Senegalese law allows for expropriation through the use of eminent domain justifications, provided compensation is paid to land owners (ICS 2017).

Registering property takes longer and costs significantly more than the Sub-Saharan Africa average (DB 2017).

There is a high risk of corruption in Senegal’s customs administration. Companies indicate irregular payments and bribes are common in customs procedures (GETR 2016). Clearance processes are judged to be inefficient and the time-predictability of import procedures is inadequate (GETR 2016). Burdensome import procedures and tariffs are cited by businesses as the most problematic factors for importing (GETR 2016). While import compliance takes companies less time than elsewhere in the region, the associated costs are significantly higher (DB 2017). Export compliance procedures take significantly less time and are less costly than the regional average (DB 2017).

There is a high risk of experiencing corruption in Senegal’s procurement process. Companies indicate that diversion of public funds due to corruption and favoritism in the decisions of government officials are both common (GCR 2016-2017). Bribes and irregular payments are common in the process of awarding government contracts (GCR 2015-2016). About one in five companies expects to give gifts when securing a government contract (ES 2014). In addition, Senegal’s procurement procedures lack accountability and are considered questionable despite recent reforms (BTI 2016). Tenders are still frequently awarded to directly (BTI 2016). The share of directly negotiated agreements has reached twenty percent in 2014 (GI 2017). When the number of bidders able to provide a given service or good is very limited, the tendering authority may negotiate an agreement directly with a company; this particularly happens in the provision of new technologies (GI 2017). Large tenders can be problematic; they are increasingly broken up into smaller tenders to avoid the more stringent rules associated with large tenders (GI 2017). The Public Market Regulatory Authority (ARMP) publishes a list of irregularities found in procurement processes each year, but it is apparent that repercussions rarely affect the careers of the officials involved nor do they change the procedures of the institutions in question (GI 2017). Companies sanctioned for corruption offenses are prohibited from bidding on future contracts; however, public entities found guilty of irregularities in the tendering process are not held liable (GI 2017). There is a need for more e-procurement and better training of ARMP staff in order to reduce corruption risks (DG 2017).

Companies are recommended to use a specialized public procurement due diligence tool to mitigate the corruption risks associated with public procurement in Senegal.

Companies face a high risk of corruption in Senegal’s natural resources sector. The monitoring, testing, enforcement and sanctioning capacities of the government for environmental management and mine closure remain weak (IGF 2016). Financial statements related to natural resource exploitation are not readily available to the general public (GI 2017). Deforestation by illegal timber traffickers is a major problem in Senegal which the government has been unable to stop (Africa News, Dec. 2015). Authorities may be complicit; in one case a local mayor tried to report on illegal deforestation in a nearby forest reserve to the government, yet the official overseeing the case tried to bribe him to stay quiet (Africa News, Dec. 2015). Senegal’s joined the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in 2014, and is set to be evaluated against the standard for the first time in late 2017. As part of this effort, Senegal introduced a new Mining Code in 2016 which aims to improve transparency (DLA Piper, Mar. 2017). Senegal has announced it will publish a list of beneficial ownership as part of EITI by 2020 (EITI 2017).

Large oil and gas reserves were discovered, but concerns about the readiness of the country to exploit these in a transparent and beneficial way are widespread (The Financial Times, Dec. 2016). There are allegations of favoritism in the sale of two offshore drilling permits in 2012 to a firm led by Aliou Sall, the president’s brother (The Financial Times, Dec. 2016).