Moody’s, an approach already refuted by Senegal September 1, 2026

Since the hidden debt affair, Senegal’s sovereign rating by Moody’s has evolved rapidly. Already, on October 4, 2024, the rating agency had assigned a B1 rating to Senegal. A few months later, in February 2025, Moody’s lowered this rating to B3, with a negative outlook.

Subsequently, in October 2025, Senegal’s rating was downgraded to Caa1, still with a negative outlook. And, last Friday, the agency finally assigned the Caa2 rating to Senegal, with a negative outlook. It must be said that relations between Moody’s and the Senegalese government are far from good. In October 2025, the Ministry of Finance and Budget publicly challenged the agency’s approach, considering that the lowering of Senegal’s credit rating, from B3 to Caa1, was based on “speculative, subjective and biased assumptions”.

This rating, the Government emphasized, reflected neither the reality of the country’s economic fundamentals nor the public policy measures implemented to consolidate budgetary stability and strengthen debt sustainability. “At the forefront of these reforms is the Economic and Social Recovery Plan (Pres), already being implemented, in particular through the adoption by the National Assembly of revisions to the General Tax Code and a new Investment Code. Such hazardous initiatives, based on partial, premature justifications and undisclosed sources, confirm Moody’s dubious course of action towards Senegal for several months,” the Government declared.

D. DIENG