The ARCEP, Togo’s telecom regulator, received a delegation from its Ivorian counterpart on March 21 and 22. The Ivorian side came to learn from the Togoelse regulator’s experience.

The Ivorian delegation included representatives of the ministry of communication and digital economy, and of the ARTI, which is Côte d’Ivoire telecom watchdog. During their stay, they mainly had workshops with the ARCEP. The latter covered the legal and regulatory framework relating to the quality of service of electronic communications, the methods of organization and conduct of QoS measurement campaigns, as well as the tools and equipment for measuring the quality of service in both countries.

The Ivorian delegation came a few weeks only after another from Comoros, which also came to learn from the ARCEP. With the Comorian delegation, Togo inked a deal to develop a win-win partnership that will address bottlenecks to telecom regulation in both countries.

Esaïe Edoh

Graduates and upcoming students of the IFAD training institutes in Togo should have more ease getting financing to launch their businesses in the coming years. This is thanks to two partnership agreements signed last Wednesday, March 22, at the IFAD of Elavagnon in the East Mono Prefecture. 

The first deal was signed between the Education-Development Agency (AED) and the Ministry of Grassroots Development. It will help all IFAD graduates to secure funds for their professional integration projects.

The second deal is a tripartite agreement between IFAD Aquaculture, the Support Fund for Youth Economic Initiatives (FAIEJ), and the microfinance COOPEC-AD. It will allow the co-financing of business plans of young entrepreneurs.

The two agreements were signed about a month after the graduation of the first cohort of trainees of Elavagnon’s IFAD. The latter provides training in aquaculture.

This cohort was the first to graduate from the IFAD. It included 113 youths–27 young women and 86 young men.

The minister of foreign affairs of Togo, Robert Dussey, was in South Korea last week. 

On the occasion, the two countries reiterated their commitment to deepen their cooperation in key sectors like agriculture, health, education, renewable energy, and ICTs, Dussey reported on his website. 

The Togolese official presented to the Korean side Togo’s 2025 government roadmap. While doing so,  he highlighted the investment opportunities offered by the Adétikopé Industrial Platform (PIA), as well as Togo’s ambition to consolidate its position as a logistics and service hub in West Africa.

Regarding cooperation and support for development, "Minister Dussey also exchanged with the presidents of the Korean Cooperation Agency (KOICA), the Korean Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), the Korea-Africa Foundation as well as with representatives of various Korean companies."

South Korea and Togo have been cooperating for years and the Asian country has been supporting its African partner in several areas, notably technology, agriculture, and education. Earlier this year, Seoul mobilized about CFA3 billion to advance education in the Savanes region, northern Togo.

Two days ago, on March 26, President Faure Gnassingbe urged his staff to speed up the implementation of projects falling under the government’s 2025 roadmap. The Togolese Head of State did so at the close of the first annual seminar of the government held last week in Kpalimé. 

"In the current global context marked by multiple crises, we must act on the levers that we have control over. We must do it and we must do it quickly," Gnassingbé declared as the meeting was closing. Accelerating the projects, according to the leader, is “in the population’s interest.”

According to the government’s statement issued after the meeting, the President “stressed the urgency of continuing the collective mobilization by mainly relying on local resources.”

Togo’s roadmap was launched three years ago, which explains the president’s call for accelerating its implementation.

Esaïe Edoh 

Over the past year, more people in Togo’s maritime region have relied on health services. For example, the rate of use of curative care in the region fell from 54% in 2021 to 49% last year, and that of assisted childbirth rose from 67% to 73.5%.

The figures were reviewed last week during a workshop held in Tsevie. Organized by the region’s health directorate, the meeting took place on March 22-24. 

According to Agence Togolaise de Presse, the workshop aimed to gather various actors in the sector to conduct a critical and constructive assessment of the activities carried out in 2022. The participants also looked at potential actions to integrate into the region’s new health strategy. 

During the workshop, all of the region’s health facilities (public, private, and religious) presented their activities’ results.

Besides the previous figures, the participants also revealed an improvement in the success rate of tuberculosis treatment, from 80% to 84%. It was also indicated that all women who needed a subsidized C-section could have the surgery.

In contrast to these improvements, other indicators such as maternal mortality due to obstetric causes, mortality due to malaria in children under 5, and coverage of health personnel needs at the primary care level, did poorly over the period reviewed. Also, the proportion of maternal deaths reported and audited remained low.

It is worth noting that nearly 3 million people live in the maritime region (2.6 million in 2010) - that is over 40% of Togo’s population.

Togo only raised CFA8.5 billion in its latest issue on the WAEMU market. That is far from its target for the operation: CFA40 billion. 

The operation, a simultaneous issue of fungible treasury bills and bonds closed on March 24. In detail, Lomé raised CFA7 billion via the bills, which mature over 364 days, and CFA1.5 billion via the bonds. The latter mature over 5 and 3 years and the 3-year bonds raised CFA100 million. 

According to the UEMOA Securities, 10 investors subscribed to the issue. They mobilized CFA9.6 billion out of which CFA8.5 billion were retained. 

Including the recent operation, Togo has raised CFA111 billion on the regional money market so far this year. This is against an annual target of CFA574 billion. The funds will finance the national budget. 

Esaïe Edoh

The government of Togo held its first seminar of the year last Friday, in Kpalimé. The 3-day meeting was chaired by President Faure Gnassingbe himself. 

During the seminar, the leader and his collaborators assessed how advanced the key projects of the 2025 government roadmap were and their impacts. 

The seminar was organized in a particular context. Indeed, Togo will hold regional and legislative elections this year. 

The previous seminar was held last September, still in Kpalimé. At the time, participants looked at how advanced some projects were–road, health, urbanism, and investment projects notably. 

Esaïe Edoh

A delegation of Canadian businesspeople is currently in Togo, exploring opportunities the West African country has to offer. The visit falls under the “Promoting the Togo destination” initiative carried out by Togolese authorities. 

Most of the Canadian businessmen of the delegation are from New Brunswick province. They were led by Gaëtan Thomas, President and General Manager of the Economic Council of the said province. They visited the IFAD-Building in Adidogomé, the Industrial Platform of Adétikopé (PIA), and the Autonomous Port of Lomé (PAL).

After meeting with Togolese government officials, local employers’ associations, and actors of the private sector, the Canadians announced upcoming investments in Togo’s port, mining, environment, and energy sectors.

The investments should bolster the relationship between Togo and Canada, in a context where bilateral trade between both nations was valued at about $65.2 million in 2021, according to data from the Canadian government. That year, Canada exported $51.5 million worth of goods to Togo and imported $13.8 million worth of goods from the African country.

Esaïe Edoh 

As Serge Ekué emphasized last November, securitization is "the only operation" that can help increase the balance sheet of local banks tenfold, an excellent tool that "will enable us to improve the contribution of the financial sector to national development plans.”

The Banque Ouest Africaine de Développement (BOAD) just launched a securitization operation of $246 million (or CFA150 billion). The operation extends from March 20 to April 3, 2023.

Specifically, the securitization operation involves converting sovereign loans that the Bank granted its member States into negotiable securities on the regional financial market. The operation should help the BOAD quickly raise funds to partly finance part of its 2021-2025 Djoliba plan, a strategic investment program, according to Adji Sokhna Mbaye, Director of BOAD Securitization. 

The BOAD Securitization was specially created to combine financial claims or debts into a single package and convert the latter into marketable securities. It is in charge of managing receivables securitization mutual funds (FCTC).

The entity’s boss, Adji Sokhna Mbaye, said the funds raised through the securitization will be spent on key projects that are likely to improve employment, road construction, the GDP of States, and boost the production of clean water, rice, energy, as well as curb CO2 emissions.

Mbaye further noted that the recently-launched operation has one of the best risk-to-return ratios on the market. Also, she stressed, the underlying receivables benefit from a privileged status with a very high seniority and an AAA rating. This means that they have priority in case of default. Given that the BOAD is the only bank with an investment grade rating in the WAEMU, investors should trust it more.

Moreover, with the presence of a junior tranche of 1% subscribed entirely by BOAD, which is a category of securities with a lower priority in the order of repayment than the senior tranches, the Lomé-based institution indicates that it wants to strengthen the alignment of interests with investors.

Adji Sokhna Mbaye also revealed that a minimum 5% reserve account will be set up to protect investors against unexpected losses on the underlying sovereign debt. 

All these incentives should, according to the BOAD, attract regional investors who "are looking for investments with stable and predictable returns, which is a perfect fit for the characteristics of this operation."

Three management and intermediation companies (SGI Togo, Impaxis Securities, and NSIA Finance) have been selected to form the consortium responsible for placing the bonds (securities) on the regional financial market at an annual rate of 6.10% for a maturity of 2.8 years (84 months).

Good timing?

Does the BOAD’s operation have a chance of succeeding? Especially in the current regional context marked by liquidity stress? The concern is also justified given the recent cancellations of issues on the regional debt market. For example, Benin and Mali recently postponed their latest issues on the public securities market, a day before deliberations.

Answering the question, Kokouvi Etsè, the General Manager of SGI TOGO, one of the three SGIs retained for the operation, declared: "The BOAD is a benchmark issuer on our financial market and all investors interested in diversification always want some of its securities in their portfolios. The securities are issued via a securitization vehicle of sound receivables of BOAD on States [...] given its signature quality, the previous issues of BOAD have been sold and closed successfully on the regional financial market.”

Containing debt ratio

This operation enables the BOAD to raise additional funds without resorting to debt. This is because the Lomé-based Bank wants to increase its equity, to meet the financing needs induced by government development projects, as well as the needs of the private sector–projects that are at the heart of the BOAD’s Djoliba plan. 

There is also the Bank’s debt ratio which reached 250% in 2019 – a rate that Serge Ekué has been striving to contain since he took over the lender’s helm.

Increasing equity should, however, make things easier for the Bank. At present, the institution needs a capital increase of CFA554 billion to mobilize a total financing of €5 billion over the period 2021-2025 which is necessary to implement its roadmap. 

Fiacre E. Kakpo