Dakar Mayor Indicted in $3M Fraud

Khalifa Sall, the mayor of Dakar, Senegal’s capital, was arrested by Senegalese authorities on corruption and fraud charges.

On Tuesday, Sall was arrested and charged with embezzling 1.38bn CFA francs ($2.87 million) in city funds, according to Reuters. Prosecutors say Sall, who has been in office since 2009, must account for funds misspent between 2011 and 2015.

Sall, who denies any wrong doing, is a member of Senegal’s Socialist Party that is part of the country’s ruling coalition. And while he is considered a rebel in political circles, he enjoys the support of a loyal political base and is expected to run for the presidency in 2019 against incumbent President Macky Sall.

Police say Sall is guilty of fraud, criminal conspiracy, and money laundering. Following his arrest, he spent Tuesday night in detention along with at least five members of his staff. Under Senegalese law, Sall’s offence is not bailable so he will remain in jail until his trial.

According to Sall’s legal representatives, his arrest is politically motivated, “This arrest was made by invoking fallacious arguments about the embezzlement of public finds but in fact it’s aimed at preventing him from carrying out his political ambition,” Cire Cledor, one of his lawyers, said in a statement.

Senegal is one of Africa’s most-stable democracies and the West African nation is one of a handful of African nations to have never suffered a coup or a military intervention in government.

With little natural wealth to boast of, Senegal has also been largely immune to the “resource curse” or the unbridled kleptocracy that afflicts mineral-rich countries.

However, allegations of corruption have continued to surface in recent times, with President Sall, who was elected in 2012, establishing a mandate to tackle corruption and conduct a number of high-profile prosecutions.

In 2015, Karim Wade, the son of the former President Abdoulaye Wade, was sentenced to six years in prison after he was convicted for embezzling public funds. The junior Wade was a senior minister in his father’s government.

He served three years of his sentence before receiving a presidential pardon last year.