A handover ceremony was held on Friday in Dakar between the two directors general of the Agency for the Construction of Public Buildings and Facilities (ACBEP). Cheikh Issa Sall, who succeeds Baye Niass, takes the helm of a structure whose portfolio has grown considerably over two years — but whose ambitions remain commensurate with the country’s infrastructural challenges.
A profile seasoned in major state agencies
The new director general is no stranger to public institutions. A former director general of the Municipal Development Agency (ADM) and the Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC), Cheikh Issa Sall has broad experience managing quasi-governmental bodies with an investment mandate. During the installation ceremony, he committed to making the ACBEP “an instrument of performance and efficiency” in the service of the State, pledging to establish “participatory and rigorous management” and to provide Senegal with “modern public infrastructure.”
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These voluntarist formulas, standard in any installation speech, nonetheless raise a fundamental question: what specific objectives, timelines, and performance indicators will concretely guide his action? The APS press release says nothing on the matter.
What the outgoing record reveals
Baye Niass, who had been leading the ACBEP since July 2024, presented a report he himself describes as “very positive.” According to his own figures, the agency’s budget rose from 5.2 billion francs CFA backed by seven projects in July 2024 to 8.7 billion francs CFA for the 2026 fiscal year, of which 6.6 billion is earmarked for investment. Partnership agreements representing a total amount of 40 billion francs CFA are also said to have been signed during this period.
The headcount is reported to have grown from 68 to 99 staff over two years, with, according to the outgoing director, a technical core comprising 13 engineers and 22 senior civil engineering technicians.
These figures deserve to be read with discernment: they come from the report presented by Baye Niass himself, with no external audit or independent evaluation mentioned. The budgetary growth is real, but the assessment of the “upward trajectory” he claims also depends on the nature of the projects delivered, their quality, and their execution rate — all elements absent from the press release.
The ACBEP within the public project ownership landscape
The agency is part of a Senegalese ecosystem of entities specialised in public infrastructure procurement. Its budgetary rise, if confirmed, signals a desire to further centralise the construction and rehabilitation of state buildings. It remains to be seen how the ACBEP coordinates with other sector-specific bodies active in this area, and whether the increase in agreements to 40 billion FCFA actually translates into concrete achievements on the ground.
For Cheikh Issa Sall, the priority will be to transform contractual commitments into tangible deliverables, in a context where Senegalese public finances have been under close scrutiny since the budgetary revelations at the start of the year. The new director general’s credibility will be measured less by his installation declarations than by the projects actually received under his governance.
Source: APS (Agence de presse sénégalaise), 2 September 2025
