Togo First
Covid-19: IFC to provide $2 billion to African economies
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) announced on May 18, 2021, the disbursement of $2 billion to support small businesses and boost trade in Africa. The support will, according to the World Bank’s arm, help African economies recover post-Covid.
In detail, a billion dollars will directly finance micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and the other half will finance international trade for Africa, to ease the import and export of essential goods - notably, food and medical products.
“To create the conditions for an inclusive and sustainable recovery, it is essential to increase and adapt our financing to small and medium-sized enterprises and to secure the trade flows that drive economic activity,” said Makhtar Diop, IFC Director-General. “This is a critical time for people, businesses, and economies across Africa,” he added while emphasizing that “long-term recovery depends on financing the pillars of the economy that need it most today.”
This financing is one of the most important commitments the IFC ever made for Africa. It comes as Africa faces the impact of the pandemic, which provoked its first recession in 25 years, slowing the private sector’s growth and cutting by 18% foreign direct investments in Africa.
Togo: Authorities begin elaboration of a national strategy to fight corruption
By March 2022, Togo should have a national strategy to fight corruption and relation offenses more efficiently. Last Friday, the elaboration of this document was started by Christian Trimua, Minister of Human Rights and Spokesperson of the government.
Three years ago, the Higher Authority for Prevention and Fight Against Corruption and Related Offenses (HAPLUCIA), an institution for which the government had high hopes, started operations. Yet, Togo’s performances in terms of corruption were relatively modest, as attested by various global rankings and the Transparency International report.
Indeed, in the latter, the country scored 29 points in 2019, 30 points the year before that, and stagnated at 32 points from 2015 till that year.
Contrasting with the government’s objectives, the HAPLUCIA, in a recent poll, revealed that 58.1% of the Togolese think corruption increased in the past 12 months, while only 18.4% of them think it reduced.
To improve the situation, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) decided to partner with HAPLUCIA. Wiyao Essohana, Head of UNDP Togo, said in this regard: “UNDP's support to Haplucia is part of a holistic approach to supporting the transformation of public administration, promoting transparency, efficiency and accountability of institutions.”
It should be recalled that Christian Trimua previously noted that, in line with the government’s 2020-2025 roadmap, the HAPLUCIA would be recomposed.
In parallel, Lomé doubles down on efforts to keep corruption to the minimum. Recently, a project was announced to foster the declaration of goods and assets by officials, and another to democratize digital payment within the administration was launched.
Daniel Agbenonwossi (intern)
Moov Africa Togo fined nearly CFA600 million after recent hearing
Moov Africa Togo is to pay a CFA593 million fine for "serious and lasting breaches of its obligation to provide its electronic communications networks and services on a permanent and continuous basis."
According to the same source, the subsidiary of Maroc Telecoms was notified of the fine. It is the result of a sanction procedure opened in October 2020 by the telecom regulator, ARCEP. Indeed, the latter accused Moov Africa of not meeting the obligations of “permanence, continuity, and availability of services, as set out in its specifications.”
During the hearing that preceded the issuance of the sanction, Michel Yaovi Galley, ARCEP’s Director-General, mentioned many disturbances, on the operator’s network, that lasted through June to September 2020 and March to April 2021.
In response to the regulator’s accusations, Moov Africa Togo’s representatives, led by the firm’s managing director Abdellah Tabhiret, attributed the disturbances mentioned to prolonged power cuts by the CEET. The group also said their cables had been cut by Togo Telecom and construction companies working across the country.
According to the regulator, however, these explanations, paired with an investment of CFA113 billion Moov Africa claims to have made in Togo to improve the quality of its services, are insufficient.
To be continued
Séna Akoda
Drinking water: PM Victoire Dogbe details the government’s ambitions
Last Wednesday, May 19, PM Victoire Dogbé visited the water tower sites of Bè, Nyékonakpoè, and Adougba. The projects were started less than a year ago, under the Program to Support Vulnerable Populations (PAPV).
Once operational, the towers, with a total capacity of 4,000 m3 of water, should boost access to water in Lomé. Up till now supply to the capital is ensured by a plant in Cacavelli.
“For these projects, we trusted local experts who led the works with brio. I urged the teams to double down on their efforts to deliver within the best delays,” said Dogbé.
Togo: Covid brought down remittances in 2020
Remittances from the Togolese diaspora fell 4% in 2020, from about $458 million (CFA247 billion) in 2019 to $441 million (CFA238.3 billion). The data was disclosed by the foreign minister, Robert Dussey, at the commissioning of the Single diaspora desk last May 10th.
The decrease, which happened after a 1.55% increase in 2019, however, is better than the average in the region. In sub-Saharan Africa, remittances slumped by 12.5% last year, due to the health crisis that hit the developed countries. Worldwide, the fall was more mitigated, 2.4%, due to some resilience in South Asia, Southern America, and the MENA region.
Experts finalize plan to tackle illegal fishing in Togolese waters
Togo is working on a plan to tackle illegal fishing in the country’s waters. The related strategic document is being validated in Lomé by actors of the sector gathered for a 2-day workshop started yesterday.
In detail, the actors are assessing challenges the sector needs to overcome, which include unauthorized fishing and fake registration of fishing boats.
“The national action plan to fight illegal, unregulated, and undeclared fishing was drawn, well thought and pegged to the FAO’s international action plan against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing,” said Ali Dantami, Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture.
The plan will in effect enable Togo to better monitor fishing activities, prevent the overexploitation of resources and limit the number of boats that can fish in the national waters. Moreover, it would help improve the revenues of local fishermen.
According to Dantami, “the national marine, maritime brigade, the maritime prefecture, fishery services, the High Council for the Sea, fishermen, and many more” should be engaged in the process.
Amid severe outages, Côte d’Ivoire reduces power supply to Togo and others
As it has been facing severe outages for some weeks now, Ivory Coast will reduce its power supply to some countries in the West Africa region. The news was announced by the country’s minister of energy, Thomas Camara, on May 10.
The countries concerned by the measure include Togo, Ghana, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Liberia, which import 11% of Côte d’Ivoire’s gross output. With the measure, power exports from Côte d’Ivoire across West Africa should fall from 200MW to 60MW, Camara said.
The official ascribed the move to the drought that hit the country, substantially lowering water levels at dams. In addition to this, one of the country’s main thermal plants suffered a breakdown.
For Togo, this is not so good news given that it is currently undertaking important energy projects, in line with its ambition to achieve universal power coverage by 2030.
Last April, the country commissioned Kekeli Efficient Power, a thermal plant with an annual output of 532 GWh. The plant should, at full throttle, boost Togo’s output capacity by 50%, and supply electricity to more than 250,000 households (more than 1.5 million people).
A new cassava transformation plant inaugurated in Atakpamé
Yesterday, the cassava transformation factory of Nouvelle Société de Commercialisation des Produits Agroalimentaires (NSCPA), located in Kamina (5km east of Atakpamé and 161.5 km from Lomé), was inaugurated by Prime Minister Victoire Dogbé. Works to build the facility took less than a year.
The first of its kind in Togo, the plant should generate over 3,700 direct jobs in the cassava sector. The industrial complex can produce, every year, 15,000 t of starch, thus about 50 t per day.
The project was supported by the Projet d’Appui à l’Employabilité et à l’Insertion des Jeunes dans les Secteurs porteurs (PAEIJ-SP), a program which has backed a little less than 1200 groups of farmers and trained 15 financial institutions on the financing of agricultural value chains, between 2016 and 2020. Besides PAIEJ-SP, the AfDB also backed the project with CFA1.3 billion.
On the sidelines of the inauguration, young entrepreneurs in partnership with PAEIJ-SP in Atakpamé met with the PM.
Daniel Agbenonwossi (intern)
Cotton output halved
Climatic hazards, poor seed quality, and the Covid-19 pandemic. These are the reasons that could explain, according to the New Cotton Company of Togo (NSCT) and the national cotton growers organization, the sharp drop in the 2020-2021 campaign, now ending.
Meeting on May 18-19 in Sokodé, in the central region, major players in the sector announced that this year the sector underperformed, with output falling below the 100,000 t mark, far from the authorities’ ambition to produce over 200,000 t.
In effect, from 117,000 t in the previous season, this year’s output was 66,000 t, thus 43% less year to year.
This underperformance comes at a time when the sector has just been entrusted to the Singaporean Olam, which is working hard to achieve the new ambitions inherent in its specifications. By 2025, the objective is to increase the production of white gold to 225,000 t and to substantially increase farmers’ income.
The government, let’s recall, set the minimum price at which a kg of cotton seed can be sold to CFA235, regardless of the volatility of the commodity on the international market. It also established an automatic system to reevaluate this price when national output rises.
These are important challenges for Olam, in the sense that, over the last few years, production and global prices have fluctuated, even though since the advent of the NSCT, tonnage has increased by more than 400%.
In Togo, cotton brings in about 50% of agricultural export revenues or an average of CFAF 50 billion per year.
Fiacre E. Kakpo
IFC announces upcoming major investments in Togo’s solar and internet sectors
At the end of a meeting with Faure Gnassingbé, Togo’s President, last Tuesday in Paris, the Director-General of the International Finance Corporation, Makhtar Diop, announced two major investments for Togo.
The first concerns the construction of a solar plant and the other a submarine fiber optic cable project to improve internet access in the West African country. “For us, the goal is to reiterate our will to support authorities with financing in these areas,” said the IFC’s boss.
The two men also talked about the progress Togo made regarding its business climate. Togo was the country with the best progress in Africa, in the Doing Business ranking. “And this shows today, with foreign and local private investors looking to invest in Togo,” added Diop.
Indeed, Togo, in the 2020 Doing Business, gained 40 ranks standing at the 97th position, worldwide, and becoming the top performer in sub-Saharan Africa.
Over the past decade, the IFC, which is the World Bank’s arm for financing the private sector, has invested over $600 million (that is about CFA322 billion) in Togo, across the following sectors notably: energy, financial markets, cement production, logistics, and health.