The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will spend CFA50 million to set up two cassava production and transformation facilities in the villages of Tokpo and Atigbe. 

The project will empower the women of these communities and foster local development, said Aliou Dia, Resident Representative of the UNDP in Togo. Dia, who talked with the women, added that they are having great issues in valorizing the activity. 

Let it be recalled that some months ago, a starch factory was commissioned in the Plateaux region, and five cassava processing units were also installed in Vo.  

The more the better? 

Cassava is one of the most grown agricultural product in Togo; the country produced 1,140,200 t in 2020 (BCEAO), which is 20,000 t more than in 2019. Every year, a surplus of about 400,000 t is recorded. 

Paradoxical with this excessive supply of the tuber, prices of its derived products, gari and tapioca being the main ones, keep rising. For example, in local markets, a bowl of gari currently sells for CFA1,200, up from CFA1,000 recently and CFA600 before that. 

Regardless, the ministry of agriculture is mustering efforts to further increase cassava production. 

Octave Bruce & Klétus Situ

President Faure Gnassigbé inaugurated Tuesday the Blitta solar plant. The Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed solar plant, as it has been named, was built by AMEA Togo Solar, a subsidiary of AMEA Power. 

The plant has a capacity of 50 MWp and is equipped with more than 5,000 solar panels. According to the Togolese authorities, it should generate around 90,255 MWh per year,  and supply electricity to about 158,333 households in Togo. Additionally, the power produced should meet 9% of the central region’s demand. 

The West African Development Bank (BOAD) and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) backed the project with CFA21 billion. “Its concretization”, says Aziable Mila, minister of energy and mines, perfectly “illustrates the success of the public-private partnership in Africa with AMEA power, which benefited from a favorable investment climate in Togo that enabled it to pre-finance this large-scale project with its own funds.” 

AMEA Power, the project developer, is controlled by the UAE-based Al Nowais Investments. The former will exploit the plant for 25 years and has committed to contributing to the saving of one million tons of CO2 emissions expected from the platform throughout its lifetime.

The solar plant project aligns with Togo’s national electrification strategy. Under the latter, the country should achieve universal access to electricity by 2030, with 50% of its mix being renewables.

A Commonwealth delegation is in Lomé for an evaluation mission, in line with Togo’s ambition to join the community. The members of this delegation will first meet with Prime Minister Tomegah-Dogbe, then with civil society organizations, the media, and political parties. 

Togo has been wanting to join the Commonwealth since 2014. “The Commonwealth is a two billion consumer market. It’s an opportunity for Togo,” said Franck Missité, Director of Cabinet at the Ministry of Communication. 

Missité emphasized that “Togo will not exit the francophonie. It remains a full member. Togo remains a Francophone country. We are just going to improve our English curriculum. We simply want to reactivate other partnerships,” the official declared. 

Joining the Commonwealth would allow Togo to benefit from the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation (CFTC). The latter plays a significant role in the economic and social development of the community’s members. 

At the end of its evaluation, the Commonwealth delegation will produce a report that will be key to the next phase of the adhesion process.  

The Commonwealth mostly consists of former British colonies. Its mission is to promote a set of values shared by its members, including equality, non-discrimination, democracy, and the rule of law.

Esaïe Edoh

The International Development Association (IDA) will provide an additional financing of $36 million (about CFA20 billion) to Benin and Togo, to help them combat coastal erosion. The disbursement was approved on June 21 by the World Bank. 

Togo will use its share of the funds to continue implementing projects that protect its coast. These include “the construction and extension of groynes in Agbodrafo and Aneho, the filling of abandoned lagoon arms east of the mouth of Aneho, as well as the construction of bicycle paths and parking lots in Agbodrafo and Sanve-Condji,” a statement from the Bretton Woods institution reads. 

According to the same source, the monies are additional resources to the West African Coastal Areas Management Program (WACA) for physical investments to combat coastal erosion in Benin and Togo

The WACA, a project implemented by Togo and Benin, helped finance urgent works to protect the coastline, along the 1,580m coast, from Gbodjome to Agbodrafo. It also protected 940 households from coastal erosion. 

Esaïe Edoh

Gal Yark Damehame, Togo’s minister of security and civil protection, is currently in Turkey on a four-day official visit. The official, who arrived last Sunday, is on a mission to improve cooperation between  Togo and Turkey. 

Damehame was preceded earlier this month by Robert Dussey, the minister of foreign affairs, who met with Turkey’s Minister of national defense. 

The two trips share the same goal and that is also why Turkey opened last April its embassy in Lomé. Always in order to boost their cooperation, the two countries plan to hold, in the Togolese capital, a business forum between September and October 2021. 

Esaïe Edoh

The Eco, the projected currency of the ECOWAS, should become a reality in 2027. This date was set in the new roadmap for the single currency recently adopted by the Authority of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government. 

The leaders, who were holding an ordinary session in Accra, Ghana, adopted a new convergence and macroeconomic stability pact to ensure that the Eco is effectively used six years from now. In line with the pact, ECOWAS States are to meet related convergence criteria between 2022 and 2026. “We have a new roadmap and a new pact that will cover the period between 2022-2026, and 2027 being the launch of the Eco,” said Jean Claude Kassi Brou, President of the ECOWAS Commission, at the end of the session. 

The community should enter a stability phase starting from January 1, 2027 - if commitments are met. The new roadmap, the fourth, comes in about a month after the General Assembly held on the Eco. The latter, an international summit on the currency, was held in Lomé and was chaired by Kako Nubukpo, a Togolese economist and advocate of the Eco. 

The roadmap was proposed then by economists who attended the summit. They had suggested the creation of a central bank that would manage the single currency. 

Klétus Situ

On June 17, the Togolese parliament unanimously passed the bill relating to the reform of the goods and asset declaration procedure. 

The new bill facilitates the declaration, allowing actors concerned to only fill a form, online and physically, that will be submitted to the Mediator of the Republic. 

Regarding the declaration basis, the minimum single fee which was supposed to be perceived, under the Jan 24, 2020, organic bill, has been canceled. New minimum fees will be fixed by a future decree, taking into account the type of property being declared. 

“This decree,” reads a report from the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Laws and Legislation, “will help adjust fees, up or down, depending on the assessment of institutions involved in the declaration process.” 

Klétus Situ

Last Thursday, Vliet Automotive Togo supplied 11 MAN trucks and 11 SCHMITZ CARGOBULL trailers to the hauliers of Brasserie du Bénin (BB Lomé). The provision of the equipment, worth CFA700 million, is part of a strategy to renew the brewer’s commercial fleet. 

Keys of the vehicles were given to the hauliers in Lomé (where Van Vliet is based) by African Lease, the lessor that financed the purchase.

We are very grateful for the trust put in us, again, by the hauliers of BB Lomé who picked us to supply their road equipment, said Marc Boisgarnier, managing director of the Dutch manufacturer.

According to him, “there are too few new trucks sold in Togo” at the moment. To change this, he added, tax cuts and VAT exemption are necessary. “Our wish is that authorities maintain tax incentives as long as possible to renew the fleet of trucks, most of which have become too old.” 

On their side, the hauliers, RANSPORT NASSIF, AFRIQUE DES 2M, and RADJI TRANSPORT, welcomed the arrival of new trucks which should allow them to provide the best services to BB Lomé. 

Séna Akoda