Romuald Wadagni is faced with the heavy responsibility of entering the race to succeed Patrice Talon. At 49, the Minister of Finance, in office since 2016, knows better than anyone that the legacy is daunting. Beyond the popular vote he will have to secure, with the handicap specific to technocrats – more pragmatic than orators – he will have to replace a man who embodied the determination to transform Benin and summed up his creed in a subliminal phrase: “the economy is everything”.
The former Deloitte executive in Paris, Lyon, Boston, and New York is not lacking in talent or networks. But he knows that Patrice Talon, a businessman turned head of state, dared where others hesitated, preferring to face unpopularity in the name of the general interest. Since 2016, Wadagni has proven that he is cut from the same cloth: bold reforms, taming of administrative rents, budgetary rigor. The small country sandwiched between Nigeria and Togo has been compared to Singapore, proof that consistency pays off.
His guiding principle is clear: no development without macroeconomic balance. In the midst of a pandemic, he refused to enter the G20 program on debt restructuring. “No cancellation, no restructuring,” he insisted before the Paris and London Clubs. The result: enhanced credibility, effusive credit rating agencies, and Benin praised as a model student of financial discipline. “Africa will not gain its sovereignty by begging for debt forgiveness,” he declared with a confidence that has won over donors and markets.
The result is there: smoothed debt, eurobonds issued at historically low rates, African pioneer of sustainable bonds. Around him, a hundred young executives, sometimes repatriated from the diaspora, support him in this first cycle of reforms: financial sanitation, modernization of administration, improvement of the business climate, and restoration of the rule of law.
By refusing the temptation of a third term, Patrice Talon has set a rare institutional milestone in Africa.
Economically, much has been achieved and much remains to be done. Certainly, Benin has transitioned from a poor country to a middle-income country. But the unemployment rate is still high. Economic transformation should accelerate to overcome social inertia.
Furthermore, the successor will inherit an unprecedented capital: macroeconomic stability, enhanced attractiveness, and the confidence of financial partners. And no one embodies this continuity better than Wadagni. Minister of Economy for almost a decade, co-pilot of the “Benin” project, he has steered public finances to safety.
The man dislikes populism and tired slogans about “food self-sufficiency”. His motto: action. Every morning at 7 o’clock, eyes fixed on the indicators, he prepares for the next step: large-scale industrialization of cotton and tropical products, expansion of economic special zones, integration of African value chains. Already, the free visa for Africans reflects this vision of openness.
One equation remains: what model for Wadagni’s Benin? An African Singapore, with its refineries and industrial hub, or a continental Hong Kong, an open platform in the shadow of giants? The answer will depend on his ability to transform budgetary consistency into social prosperity. One thing is certain: Talon’s finance minister is not lacking in method or determination.
