By signing decree no. 2026-807 at the end of April, the President of the Republic Bassirou Diomaye Faye formalized a revolution in the landscape of public procurement, which is often a hotbed of corruption.

Indeed, with the creation of the Commission for the Control of Public Procurement and Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Projects Classified as Secret Defense (CCMP-CPP/SD), Senegal is equipping itself with a safeguard to regulate sensitive contracts, formerly areas of obscurity favored for budgetary excesses.

The explanatory report for the new decree also emphasizes that the notion of "confidentiality" has too often served as a "smokescreen" to circumvent transparency rules. Between unjustified negotiated contracts that dare not speak their name and the systematic avoidance of controls, the abusive use of the "Secret-Defense" designation has hitherto weighed heavily on state finances.

To put an end to this era of opacity, the executive branch has opted for institutionalization. The new Commission for the Control of Public Procurement and Classified Public-Private Partnership Projects (CCMP-CPP/SD) is now the control tower for these strategic markets.

Reporting to the presidency, its mission is to assess, before any signing, whether a project truly deserves this exceptional regime.

"We will no longer classify markets by an absolute discretionary power," said Lamine Samb, Director of Training and Technical Support at the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (ARCOP), on the sidelines of the third edition of the International Training on Works Contract Management (FIDIC), which opened this Monday in Dakar.

“Classified defense contracts were an opaque weak link,” he admits. According to him, the current government's achievement lies in “having had the courage and ambition to shed light on classified defense contracts” by establishing a specific entity that brings together all contracting authorities and associating it with the oversight body (DCMP) and the regulatory body (ARCOP). This new commission is tasked with closely monitoring the “nature” and “eligibility” of these contracts deemed classified as defense secrets.

“From now on, we will no longer classify defense-secret contracts by absolute discretionary power. There will be upstream control. And when we have this quality assurance from the regulator, articulated around essential public authorities, I think that today we can say very clearly that in public procurement there is the reign of 'Jubb Jubbal Jubanti',” rejoices Mr. Samb, who welcomes “a major step forward in the public procurement integrity system.”