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Using material obtained during an on-going comparative study of the mechanisms and representations of low-level corruption in West Africa, this article analyses the main features of brokerage in the administration of justice, customs and local tax offices in Senegal. Unofficial staff, usually on temporary assignment, unpaid, or undeclared, seek to overcome the difficulties in obtaining access to bureaucratie institutions, while taking advantage of these difficulties to make corrupt transactions. Made possible by an opaque administration, which is understaffed, barely supervised and endowed with inordinate discretionary power, these supernumeraries facilitate the daily functioning of the Senegal administration in its post-adjustment phase and its circumvention. Using an ethnographical approach to the links between public service and users, the article describes the principal methods of operation at the local government level – which encourage them to serve as intermediaries and brokers – and foresees the emergence of informai forms of privatisation and increasing informality within institutions as a way of managing state administration on a day-to-day basis.