A fresh collision between the executive and the parliamentary majority has left Senegal facing another constitutional review. On Thursday 1 October 2026, the National Assembly led by Ousmane Sonko brushed aside the government’s amendments to the special funds reform, even after the executive resorted to a blocked vote. The organic bill now heads to the Constitutional Council, where President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s camp could once again come out on top — leaving citizens and businesses to absorb the economic fallout of the delay.

The organic bill No. 38/2026, which amends the Organic Law on Finance Laws (LOLF), was on the agenda of Thursday’s plenary session. Its stated aim is to strengthen budget transparency and to regulate the management of special funds — the credits often described as the presidency’s slush fund. For ordinary Senegalese, the stakes are tangible: how these billions are spent determines funding for defence, diplomacy and national solidarity programmes that many families rely on.

This is the second attempt. A first initiative was struck down by the Constitutional Council on 25 August 2026 in decision No. 7/C/2026. The judges recalled that the status of public credits falls exclusively within the domain of organic law. Pastef MPs therefore returned with the correct legal vehicle, but on substance the disagreement with the executive remains complete.

Why the executive defends the president’s social spending powers

Before the deputies, the Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, Me Moussa Sarr, carried the government’s position. While saying he shared the goal of transparency, the executive proposed deep adjustments.

The first disagreement concerns the nature of special funds. The bill sought to make them a distinct category reserved for defence, security and diplomacy missions. The government opposes this. In its view, such a restriction ignores the social character of the Republic enshrined in Article 1 of the Constitution. The head of state must, it argues, be able to mobilise these resources for national solidarity actions in the face of humanitarian emergencies.

Through Amendment No. 2, the executive proposed to reintegrate these expenses into the global allocation of constitutional institutions provided for in Article 14 of the LOLF. Me Moussa Sarr invoked Directive No. 06/2009/CM/UEMOA, which sets a limitative list of budget allocations. Isolating special funds would, according to him, create a legal vacuum by failing to designate their authorising officer.

The second point of friction concerns the oversight powers of deputies provided for in Article 70. Through Amendment No. 3, the government wanted to limit the Finance Committee’s monitoring to the current annual management. It thus removed the possibility for the Assembly to control the use of credits at the end of each budget year. For the Keeper of the Seals, such a prerogative would encroach on the exclusive competences of the Court of Auditors.

The executive also wanted any request to hear a minister by deputies to be automatically transmitted to the President of the Republic, in accordance with the Assembly’s internal rules.

Heading to the Constitutional Council

To lock down the text, the government deployed the blocked vote. Me Moussa Sarr requested the application of Article 82, paragraph 4, of the Constitution and Article 87 of the internal rules, which impose a single vote on the text with only the amendments retained by the government. “The government does not conceive of transparency as a constraint, but as a lever for consolidating the rule of law,” he argued, presenting the blocked vote as a tool provided by the Constitution to guarantee the coherence of texts.

The Pastef majority did not follow. Deputies rejected all the executive’s proposals to maintain their own version of the text. The disagreement between the Palace and the Hemicycle is now complete.

The outcome of this standoff will be played out before the judges. An organic law can only be promulgated after being declared constitutional by the Constitutional Council, seized by the President of the Republic. The text voted by the majority must therefore pass through this filter.

The government will then have several arguments: respect for UEMOA directives, the competences of the Court of Auditors and the regularity of the procedure, after the rejection of a blocked vote that is nevertheless provided for by the Constitution. All points on which the judges will have to rule — and whose outcome could shape public spending priorities for years to come.