Pressure, change and termination: How the Alioune Sarr affair is shaking up the state services

Economist, financial expert, and former technical advisor to the Secretary of State for Housing, Alioune Sarr, denounces what he calls an arbitrary dismissal orchestrated by the Director General of the Directorate of Construction and Housing, Moussa Tine. His case, far from being isolated, is part of a wave of contract terminations deemed abusive affecting several public institutions. The situation is such that the Interministerial Collective of Senegalese Civil Servants (CIAAS) issued an official statement on July 26, 2026, calling on the Prime Minister to take action.

A program that's still active, a disputed notification

It all began on April 10, 2026. On that day, Alioune Sarr, a finance specialist, received a termination notice signed by the Director General of the General Directorate of Construction and Housing (DGCH). He was completely stunned. His permanent contract (CDI), obtained after two successive fixed-term contracts since joining the company in 2020, had been linked since 2023 to a national program officially running until 2035. How could a contract be terminated when the core program was still in effect?

The argument put forward by the managing director to justify this termination rests on a premise that Alioune Sarr refutes, providing supporting documents: that the Housing Supply Acceleration Program, to which his permanent contract is attached, is no longer in effect. However, the economist produces a 2016 decree, extended until 2035, attesting that the program is still legally valid.

“ I brought this to the attention of the general manager, responding to him in writing with supporting documents. The program is there, it runs until 2035, and it has only served a termination notice to one person out of the fifteen workers in management ,” he denounces.

This program is one of the components of the "Zero Slum" initiative and is directly part of the 100,000 housing project, a project on which Alioune Sarr has worked specifically as a technical advisor, providing his expertise in economic modeling and financial monitoring.

A firmly established institutional profile

What makes this case particularly striking is the profile of the dismissed executive. Holding a Master's degree in Economic Analysis and Policy and a Master 2 in Banking Econometrics and Quantitative Finance obtained at UCAD, Alioune Sarr is also pursuing a Master 2 in Analysis, Evaluation and Digitalization of Public Policies at IPP.

It is primarily in his capacity as Chairman of the Evaluation Committee of the Housing Access Guarantee Fund (FOGALOG), a mission entrusted to him following a presidential directive of December 18, 2024, that Alioune Sarr has demonstrated the confidence placed in him by the highest state authorities. He is also the Focal Point with the ANSD (National Agency for Statistics and Demography) and Chairman of the Statistical Programs Subcommittee of Axis 2 of the National Statistical System.

Salary suspension, transfer, and maneuvers

Even before receiving notification of the termination of his contract, Alioune Sarr claims to have been subjected to a series of administrative pressures. Two months before the termination, the managing director allegedly sent him a request for explanation for "abandonment of post," a grievance he formally denies, before suspending his salary for one to two months.

Even more troubling: on January 9, nearly three weeks before the January 28 request for explanation, the same director had already transferred him to the Social Housing Promotion Department. He complied with this unilateral transfer by reporting to work. " How can I be accused of abandoning my post when I had already been transferred? " he asks.

Upon taking up the case, the Labour Inspectorate encountered the refusal of the Director General to sign the conciliation report, the latter having merely declared that it was "the decision of the authority", without further explanation.

Months of institutional silence

Faced with this situation, Alioune Sarr says he has exhausted all internal avenues of appeal. He has successively sent letters and requested meetings with the Secretary General of the Ministry, the Legal Affairs Department, the Minister of Housing, Balla Moussa Fofana, the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Public Service. These efforts have gone unanswered.

“ What hurts the most is being left waiting. The authorities haven’t even bothered to reply to me ,” he confides, after more than three months of administrative silence.

The CIAAS is sounding the alarm

The case of Alioune Sarr is not isolated. It is part of a trend that the Interministerial Collective of Agents of the Senegalese Administration (CIAAS) officially denounced in a press release published on July 26, 2026, signed by its coordinator Omar Dramé.

The CIAAS (Intergovernmental Committee for Social Action) has documented a wave of layoffs affecting several public institutions. At the Directorate General of Construction and Housing, the case of Alioune Sarr is specifically cited: "a financial economist dismissed by Director General Moussa Tine after several months of relentless pressure." At the National Social Housing Agency (SN HLM), nine managers were dismissed for economic reasons. At the Emergency Program for the Modernization of Border Areas and Territories (PUMA), eight employees suffered the same fate. Finally, at the School-Business Training Program under the Ministry of Employment, 32 employees were dismissed under the supervision of former Minister Moustapha Ndieck Sarré.

The group highlights a contradiction: these layoffs, presented as economic, are allegedly accompanied by politically motivated recruitment to replace the dismissed employees. "A practice that the CIAAS considers inadmissible and unacceptable," the statement specifies, noting that the stated reasons "do not comply with the provisions of the Labor Code."

"Let the law be spoken"

Alioune Sarr is adamant: he is not asking for favors or preferential treatment. " I don't want to be given the benefit of the doubt on principle. I want the law to be upheld. If the law says I'm wrong, I will accept all the consequences. But if the law says I'm within my rights, then my rights must be restored. I am Senegalese, like any other citizen. "

The CIAAS concludes its statement with a warning to decision-makers: " It is at this price that we will be able to preserve the stability of the social climate and comply with the call of the Head of State, who aims to protect all Senegalese in the quest for a new, reconciled and emerging Senegal. "

The editorial team attempted to contact the Directorate General of Construction and Housing, as well as the Ministry of Urban Planning, Local Authorities and Territorial Development, to obtain the position of Director General Moussa Tine and Minister Balla Moussa Fofana. Our requests remained unanswered at the time of publication.