Mansour Faye drags Mimi Touré to court

Mansour Fayé, former Minister of Infrastructure, Land Transport and Openness, wants to clear his name at the Dakar High Court. In fact, the mayor of Saint-Louis has decided to file a defamation complaint against Aminata Touré, former president of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council. The hearing scheduled for June 13 has been postponed at the request of Mimi Touré’s lawyers. The two sides will face off in front of the court on July 27.

According to the newspaper Point Actu, the facts start with a post on Facebook, “where accountability ends, from the 1 trillion CFA franc Covid funding scandal, Macky Sall personally authorized the suspension of tenders and control procedures”. Macky Sall is therefore primarily responsible for a financial massacre unprecedented in the history of Senegal, in which his brother-in-law Mansour Faye also actively participated, “writes Mimi Touré.

In this article, the former president of CESE refutes the suggestion that she was singled out following the report of the General Inspectorate of State. When asked if she had misappropriated a single franc of public funds, she insisted: “The answer is no, a thousand times no!” However, according to the lawyers of former minister Mansour Faye, who has offered Mrs. Mimi Touré a direct summons and a direct summons to the correctional police released by security agent Sidy Sow, her posts contain “allegations and accusations that are clearly damaging to the honor” and considerations of the client. These incriminating statements, the lawyers continue, “discredit the reputation of Amadou Mansour Faye and are intended to cause harm”. Direct summons to the correctional police, direct request for trial, without prior investigation.

As soon as Mimi Touré’s neighbors lifted the summons, her lawyers, in particular Mes Ndèye Fatou Touré, Djiby Diallo and Moussa, sent letters to their colleagues to ensure that Mansour Faye’s defenders knew the truth about the defamation based on article 121 of the report of the Court of Auditors on the coronavirus of August 19, 2022, article 125. In response, the Mayoral Committee of the City of Saint-Louis issued a notice of contrary evidence. This notice of contrary evidence was sent on May 22 and a copy was provided to the prosecutor. After exchanges between the lawyers, the hearing was finally scheduled for July 27.

Regardless, all eyes have been on the mayor of St. Louis almost since the OFNAC reports began to be released. The OFNAC Investigation Department (Di) filed 13 reports of suspected fraud, corruption, similar practices and related crimes at the end of its 2022 investigation, an increase of 18% from the 11 reports in 2021.

OFNAC, in its 2022 activity report, noted that in 2022 a total of nine investigation reports were forwarded to the judicial authorities responsible for prosecution, the most notable of which was a case involving “a case related to the acquisition and provision of transport services for food and other products used to combat the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic; a case of embezzlement, forgery and use of forged items, occupation of land without authority, and de facto accounting and management errors by the Mayor of the town of Gander, Mr. Mamadou Sow; a case of forgery and use of forged administrative documents against the offices of the Assane Samba and Ngor/Almadis domains”.

A source close to the department of the mayor of Saint-Louis revealed that his Dage had been questioned by OFNAC investigators. But the senior official was not named in the report. The Court of Auditors cited at the time a statement from the Ministry of Infrastructure, Land Transport and Openings. It was then that Dage also gave his answer. In this letter, Aliou SOW, former Director of General Services and Equipment at the Ministry of Community Development, Social and Territorial Equity, expressed his indignation to the President of the Court, Mamadou Faye, on December 29, 2022. “Mr. First President, I must point out that reading this report really angered me and I was surprised to find in it a request for a judicial investigation against me for allegedly issuing high invoices when purchasing rice for a total amount of 2,749,927,498 francs (2,749,927,498 CFA francs).

The report’s authors explain the allegedly high invoice prices by citing the fact that the Ministry of Community Development, Social and Territorial Equity allegedly set and purchased rice at a price of 275,000 FCFA per ton, instead of 250,001 FCFA per ton as determined by May Order No. 007111. On February 22, 2013, the Minister in charge of commerce and the regulation of prices of barreled oil, pod oil, crystallized sugar and tasteless broken rice”, Dage wrote, before specifying that “procurement related to the Covid 19 pandemic are excluded from the scope of Decree No. 2014-1212 of September 22, 2014 on the Public Procurement Code.