A new standoff between the Executive and the parliamentary majority. On Thursday, October 1, 2026, the National Assembly led by Ousmane Sonko overrode the government’s amendments on the reform of special funds, despite the use of the blocked vote. The text, an organic law, now heads to the Constitutional Council, where the camp of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye could once again prevail.

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 goal is to strengthen budget transparency and regulate the management of special funds, those credits often described as the presidency’s “slush fund.”

This is a second attempt. A first initiative had been struck down by the Constitutional Council on August 25, 2026, in its decision no. 7/C/2026. The sages had then recalled that the status of public credits fell exclusively within the domain of organic law. The Pastef deputies therefore returned to the charge with the right legal vehicle, but on the substance, the disagreement with the Executive remains complete.

The government defends the president’s “social role”

Before the deputies, it was the Minister of Justice, Keeper of the Seals, Me Moussa Sarr, who carried the government’s position. While saying he shared the objective of transparency, the Executive proposed deep adjustments.

The first disagreement concerns the nature of special funds. The bill wanted to make it a distinct category, reserved for defense, security, and diplomacy missions. The government opposes this. According to it, this restriction would ignore the social character of the Republic enshrined in Article 1 of the Constitution. The head of state must, in its view, be able to mobilize these resources for national solidarity actions in the face of humanitarian emergencies.

Through amendment no. 2, the Executive proposed to reintegrate these expenses into the overall allocation of constitutional institutions, provided for in Article 14 of the LOLF. Me Moussa Sarr invoked 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, for lack of designating their authorizing officer.

The second point of friction concerns the deputies’ oversight powers, provided for in Article 70. Through amendment no. 3, the government wanted to limit the Finance Commission’s monitoring to the current annual management. It thus 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 competences of the Court of Auditors.

The Executive also wanted any request for a hearing of a minister 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 brought out the weapon of 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 conceive of 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 guarantee the coherence of texts.

The Pastef majority did not follow. The deputies rejected all of 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 played out before the sages. An organic law can only be promulgated after being declared compliant with the Constitution 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: respect for UEMOA directives, the competences of the Court of Auditors, and the regularity of the procedure, after the rejection of a blocked vote that was nonetheless provided for by the Constitution. So many points on which the Sages will have to rule.