DAKAR, (Reuters) – An audit of Senegal’s public sector has found that some 22,000 civil servants, nearly a fifth of the payroll, may be unlawfully claiming a wage, a senior official said yesterday.
The former French colony, which enjoys a reputation as the most stable democracy in West Africa, carried out the audit from November to February as it seeks to curb graft and waste in the public sector.
“We found that 112,798 people are employed as civil servants but our investigation revealed that a total of 22,000 are contentious cases,” the government’s data processing director, Kassoum Wone, told Reuters.
“We will look at each case individually before taking any decision,” he added.
Civil Service Minister Mansour Sy told local media that anyone who unlawfully defrauded money from the state would be forced to reimburse it. Since President Macky Sall won power in March 2012 he has vowed to fight corruption at all levels of government.
