The African Solidarity Fund, which provides guarantees for bank and institutional loans, has disbursed so far in Togo up to CFA38 billion. This was disclosed on March 30, 2018, by the ministry of finance, as the 18th administration council of this fund was about to begin.

According to the fund’s managing director, Ahmadou Abdoulaye Diallo, one of the major intervention of the institution in Togo is the rehabilitation of Hotel 2 Février at a cost of CFA3 billion. Besides the hospitality sector, the fund also invests in the sectors of telecommunication, agribusiness, energy, construction, etc.

In order to ensure the economy’s sustainable development, Togolese authorities, backed by reforms implemented to make business environment more conducive, give priority to projects led by youths and women, said Kossi Tofio, cabinet director at the ministry of economy and finance.

In line with this objective, the authorities wish for the fund to actively build partnerships with public institutions dedicated to the targeted group of entrepreneurs. In fact, talks are already underway in this framework and should help provide significant support to young entrepreneurs and businesswomen in the country.

Besides financial guarantees, the African Solidarity Fund also intervenes through refinancing and reduction of interest rates. Due to its management skills and financial capacity, it was rated AA+ with stable outlook by rating agency WARA.

In Togo, A FabLab was recently created in the Savanna region last weekend, French radio RFI reports. This is a public facility where computer-controlled equipment and machinery are provided and used to develop projects. “The construction of this high-tech facility in the northern part of Togo was financed by internet users browsing the French search engine Lilo.org,” RFI said.     

Clément Le Bras, co-founder of the new FabLab also developed the mentioned search engine. This platform monetizes searches it records. “It is fully free, nothing new there. You just visit the lilo.org search engine, but what most people are not aware of is that each search generates cash,” Le Bras said.

“Every year, each person using the search engine generates about €30, with adverts present at the top of the engine. We collect these proceeds and spend half of what we get on projects. Currently, we are working on the Emmabuntüs project in Northern Togo,” he added.

Togo wants to produce 10,000 tons of certified organic soybean during the 2018-2019 season. This was disclosed last week during a workshop organized by Jonction de Croissance Agricole du Togo (JCAT), the ministry in charge of grassroots development and the programme for the promotion of employment and youth’s insertion in profitable sectors (PAIEJ-SP).

To achieve this volume, the workshop’s initiators focus on boosting capacities of the sector’s actors, especially agricultural entrepreneurs, in regards to business plan development and provision of quality seedlings.

This calls for the respect, by the workshop’s participants, of standards required to produce organic soybean. The long-term objective here is to develop a grain sector that is reputed for its competitiveness and quality, worldwide.

Let’s note that a study conducted to assess the soybean sector’s capacities in 2016 revealed that it generated up to about CFA1.65 billion of revenues for the economy in 2015. In detail, the production segment contributed around 810 million CFA, while processing and commercialization respectively contributed nearly 665 million CFA and 180 million CFA. 

The measure announced by the Head of State, Faure Gnassigbé, concerning the allocation of 20% public procurements to young entrepreneurs and women was followed by many others, such as

• The creation of a Task Force which will determine targeted beneficiaries and markets’ typology
• The creation of a single desk for young entrepreneurs/women
• The creation of the following website, dncmp-togo.tg/pjfe.dncmp-togo.com, where interested individuals can register to benefit from the measure
• Compulsory requirement for all State administrations and firms to send a list of all procurements, which currently amount to CFA26.4 billion, while target is CFA40 billion.

As a result of the measure, at March 26, 2018, 1,280 entrepreneurs, 24% of which are women, registered on the webiste. As for the single desk which launched last March 5, in Lomé, it received, informed and oriented a total of 160 entrepreneurs, including 21 women; also, 26 applications for administrative documentation were received and 14 of these were processed.

Now, the next step is to effectively initiate facilitation measures, open desks in the country’s other regions, and connect digitally, institutions represented at the main desk, to enable applications to be processed more rapidly.  

Former deputy director of Orabank Togo, the group’s largest subsidiary, Rose Kayi Mivedor, was just appointed as the new director of Orabank Gabon. She will be replacing Cameroonian Guy Martial Awona who leaves with “satisfying results”.

The Togolese executive was previously managing director of Banque Atlantique and Diamond Bank Togo and spent two years at the head of the Togolese subsidiary of Orabank.

At her new position, with her 15 years of experience in the banking sector, she will keep working to raise funds to boost the bank’s activities, meet regulatory standards and most importantly make Orabank a reference in Gabon.

Let it be recalled that Rose Kayi Mivedor is the first Togolese to ever preside Togo’s professional association of banks and financial institution (APBEF-Togo). 

Besides Togo and Gabon, Orabank is present  in 10 other African nations, namely: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Chad.

Fiacre E. Kakpo

Togo’s revenue office (OTR), in the framework of its support to local firms with digitalization process, has launched a training programme on online declaration for medium enterprises. A first meeting was held in this regard on March 19-23, 2018 in the IT room of the  customs and indirect taxation office (CDDI in French). Another workshop will take place next April 4^th, and closes on April 10^th. About 400 medium enterprises will benefit from the two workshops.

Top authorities of the Office, namely those in charge of taxpayers’ education, said this training on online tax declaration, is spurred by a desire to help medium enterprises easily declare and pay their taxes. They can do this by accessing OTR’s website: www.otr.tg. There, they can declare their taxes, get an issuance slips and payment receipts.

Two years ago, it was big Togolese enterprises, still on OTR’s initiative, that received the same training on online declaration. For these businesses, a revision workshop will be organized in the next days to get them more used to the procedure.