Gambiaj.com – (DAKAR, Senegal) – Pape Malick Ndour, former minister and coordinator of the APR cadres, has firmly rejected claims linking him to the controversial PRODAC financial management affair, stating that the accusations against him are baseless and politically motivated.
Ndour, who has until now refrained from publicly commenting on the matter currently before the courts, said his silence was driven by a desire to allow justice to proceed without political interference.
However, he decided to respond to the following statements by the President of PASTEF, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, who suggested in his Téra meeting that the case against Ndour stemmed from a report by the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF). Ndour described the remarks as “fallacious” and “unfair.”
“These accusations are fallacious, unfounded, and reflect a clear intention to distort the facts,” he said.
According to Ndour, the timeline of events alone disproves the allegations. He pointed out that the first media reference to what became known as the “PRODAC report affair” was published by Dakaractu on June 11, 2018, one year before his appointment as coordinator of PRODAC on June 6, 2019.
“How could a report widely discussed in the press a year before my appointment implicate me?” he asked.
Ndour further noted that the inspector said to have authored the report, Samba Laobé Dieng, died on October 1, 2018, eight months before he took office at PRODAC. “Are we to understand that I was allegedly heard and implicated by a man who passed away before my appointment? The manipulation here borders on the absurd,” he stated.
To clear what he described as deliberate misinformation, Ndour announced that he will formally request clarification from the Minister of Finance, Cheikh Diba, on Monday.
He said he intends to seek the section of the IGF report where his name is allegedly mentioned and a certificate of service proving that he served at the Ministry of Finance between 2013 and June 2019.
“To refresh his memory,” Ndour added, he will attach minutes from weekly revenue coordination meetings chaired at the time by Cheikh Diba, the current minister of finance, meetings where Ndour sometimes acted as secretary.
These documents, he stressed, prove that prior to June 2019 he was not at PRODAC but was working as an economist at the Ministry of Finance.
“I have nothing to hide, nothing to fear, and nothing to deny,” Ndour declared. “My only demand is for the truth, in the face of these blatant attempts at manipulation and political exploitation. The Republic deserves better than half-truths and falsehoods.”
The former minister reaffirmed his confidence in the judicial system. “I have complete faith in the justice system of my country, which I defended yesterday and which I have a duty to respect and honor, whatever decisions it may make concerning me.”
