The National Assembly, led by Ousmane Sonko, has rejected all government amendments to the special funds reform, setting up another constitutional showdown with President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
On Thursday, October 1, 2026, the National Assembly, under the leadership of Ousmane Sonko, voted to override the government’s amendments to the reform of special funds, despite the use of a blocked vote. The text, an organic law, now heads to the Constitutional Council, where President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s camp may once again prevail.
What the organic bill proposes
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 regulate the management of special funds, credits often described as the presidency’s “slush fund.”
This is a second attempt. A first initiative was struck down by the Constitutional Council on August 25, 2026, in decision No. 7/C/2026. The Council then recalled that the status of public credits fell exclusively within the domain of organic law. Pastef lawmakers therefore returned with the correct legal vehicle, but the substantive disagreement with the Executive remains complete.
Government defends president’s “social role”
Before the deputies, Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals Me Moussa Sarr presented the government’s position. While saying he shared the transparency objective, 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 defense, security, and diplomacy missions. The government opposes this. According to the Executive, such a restriction would ignore the social character of the Republic enshrined in Article 1 of the Constitution. In its view, the head of state must be able to mobilize these resources for national solidarity actions in response to humanitarian emergencies.
Through Amendment No. 2, the Executive proposed reintegrating these expenses into the overall allocation for constitutional institutions, provided for in Article 14 of the LOLF. Me Moussa Sarr cited 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 authorizing 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. This 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 powers of the Court of Auditors.
The Executive also wanted any request for a minister’s hearing by deputies to be mandatorily transmitted to the President of the Republic, in accordance with the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure.
Heading to the Constitutional Council
To lock down the text, the government used the blocked vote. Me Moussa Sarr requested the application of Article 82, paragraph 4, of the Constitution and Article 87 of the Rules of Procedure, which impose a single vote on the text with only the amendments retained by the government. “The government does not see 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 ensure 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 consummated.
The outcome of this standoff will be decided before the Council. 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: compliance with UEMOA directives, the powers of the Court of Auditors, and the regularity of the procedure, after the rejection of a blocked vote that is nonetheless provided for by the Constitution. These are all points on which the Council will have to rule.