A life in the service of the State

Mouhamadou Makhtar Cissé belongs to a generation of senior civil servants who made the reform of the State their vocation. In more than two decades at the highest levels of public administration, from the classrooms of the Prytanée militaire to the Ministry of the Interior, he has headed the Customs service, turned Senelec around, led three ministries and served several Presidents of the Republic.

Born on 25 December 1967 in Dagana, in northern Senegal, he grew up between Pout and Saint-Louis, raised by the eldest of his family. Admitted to the Prytanée militaire de Saint-Louis, he obtained his baccalauréat there before entering Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, where he earned a maîtrise in business law. For a time he practised as a lawyer, then chose a career in public administration. Admitted to the École nationale d'administration, he went on to hold a master's degree in public finance and management and a doctorate in law and political science, and in December 2001 he came first in the entrance examination for the General State Inspectorate.

It was as head of Senegalese Customs, from 2009 to 2013, that he made his name as a reformer. He extended paperless procedures across the service with a new version of the GAINDÉ system, set up the single window for foreign trade, gave the administration a new Customs Code and built its headquarters. Under his authority GIE GAINDÉ 2000, the technology arm of the directorate, received the United Nations Public Service Award. The modernisation of a strategic administration earned him a place in the government in 2013 as Minister of the Budget, before he was appointed Chief of Staff to the President of the Republic.

Senelec would be his signal achievement. When he became its Director General in June 2015, the country was emerging from years of load-shedding, with close to 900 hours of power cuts in 2011. By 2016 the figure had fallen to 66. Cissé doubled generation and transmission capacity, committed the company to renewable energy through solar power plants and the Taïba Ndiaye wind farm, and rolled out the Woyofal prepaid meter. The share of renewables rose from zero to nearly a third of the electricity mix, and the press of the day credited him with bringing Senelec out of the darkness.

Appointed Minister of Energy and Petroleum in April 2019, he led the sector as the country stood on the threshold of gas and oil production. After a return to the General State Inspectorate, he again became Chief of Staff to the President in October 2023, then Minister of the Interior in March 2024, with responsibility for organising the presidential election. In June 2026 he returned to the same Ministry of the Interior and Public Security.

Known as a man who works away from the limelight, a builder of consensus with a mastery of his files, Mouhamadou Makhtar Cissé oversaw the construction of the Great Mosque of Tivaouane. A Knight of the National Order of the Lion and of the National Order of Merit of Senegal, and a Knight of the French Legion of Honour, he embodies a particular idea of public service: discreet, methodical and focused on results.