Togo has joined the Global Shea Alliance on the sidelines of the 11^th annual conference on shea sector recently held in Abuja, Nigeria. Moreover, the country wants to host the next edition of the event.  

According to news website Africa Full Success, Elisabeth Pali-Tchalla, President of Shea sector led the Togolese delegation to this meeting and said this during talks with her peers from other nations.

Joining the Global Shea Alliance, and due to its rank (7^th) in the global shea production sector, could get Togo support from various lenders to boost its shea sector.  These lenders include among others USAID, International Finance Corporation (IFC) or UN Women.

“Very soon”, Togo’s power utility, Compagnie Energie Electrique du Togo (CEET), will provide users a meter box containing many protected meters.

According to competent authorities, the box can host up to 6-12 prepaid meters and as such should be an “adequate solution to rental homes and apartments where there are distinct users”.

This would help preserve peace between residents of the same compound. It will also ease payment of power bills which users fail to pay amid conflicts with neighbors with whom they used to share the same meter.

This measure, and the others such as 30% reduction in connection fees or installment payment for the same fees, implemented by CEET will help tackle illegal connection.

A FCFA2 million check was recently granted to Edem Komlan Bessanh, CEO of NUTRI-TOGO SARL, by the minister of grass-roots development, Victoire tomégah-Dogbé. This was to reward the entrepreneur for winning the Best 2017 Entrepreneur SME Award.

Bessanh received his reward on March 16, 2018, during a cocktail-dinner. His business, let’s recall, produces mushroom-based beverages labelled “Champiso”. Commenting on his achievement, the entrepreneur said happily : “When you run a business, the most important thing is to have a strategy, knowing where you are heading to and commit to it. We have done many things, internally”. Lauding his team’s efforts he added: “This reward is not the fruit of my efforts alone; we are a team. Each and every one gave their best, in their respective field of work…”

Besides the Small and Medium Entreprises (SME) category, under the micro enterprises category, Elom Kossi Lomenou, who heads a firm called Elégance Plus, won the first prize with a CFA800,000 check.

Overall, 10 young entrepreneurs were rewarded, out of 26 selected. To choose winning participants, a specific set of criteria was observed. These include: contribution to grass-roots development, creating at least three jobs and business plan’s profitability. Also, candidates must have repaid loans they got from FAIEJ and PRADEB.

These two institutions, let it be noted, backed the “Best Entrepreneurs of the Year” contest. However, the event was sponsored by the Presidency. It aims to reward youths who dare and drive their peers to start a business, like they did.

Togo ends Q1 2018 with a remarkable performance on the regional debt market, UMOA-Titres. Indeed, after recording poor results for its security issuance on March 2, the nation raised CFA17.82 billion over a targeted CFA20 billion (thus an 89.1% coverage) last Friday.

Quite a laudable feat especially considering the mild performance of its neighbor, Benin, the day before. The latter reflects investors’ lack of interest in the region.

Overall, Lomé raised, via securities it issued, about CFA58 billion to finance its budget during Q1 2018.

Next quarter, the government wants to raise CFA40 billion, according to scheduled calendar.

Let’s recall that last week, Togo’s minister of economy and finance announced that a regional bond issued between end-2017 and the beginning of 2018, and arranged by Dakar-based firm CGF Bourse was successful. This operation helped the Treasury raise CFA61.8 billion, while it initially aimed for CFA60 billion.

Fiacre E. Kakpo

National Institute for Statistics, Economic and Demographic Studies (INSEED) has released a report on the Harmonized Index of Consumption Prices (IHPC) for January 2018. According to the document, global consumption prices level slumped by 0.1% compared to January 2017.

This is mainly due to a 2.9% decrease of the indicator related to “food, non-alcoholic drinks” and “health” baskets. Meanwhile, the indicator related to clothing and shoes slumped by 1%.

However, it (slump in global consumption prices level) can also be attributed to a 0.6% decrease of “Furniture, household equipment indicator” and a 0.9% decrease of the “Alcoholic drinks, tobacco and drugs” indicator.

Contrarily, the “Transports” and “Restaurants-Hotels” indicators respectively rose by 3% and 2.6%.  

Inflation rate determined based on the average value of these indicators on a year-to-year basis was -0.6% in January 2018 and -0.8% in December 2017.

In Togo, 104.3 km of rural and urban roads will be soon rehabilitated, under the support scheme for vulnerable populations (PAPV). These roads are located in four prefectures, namely: Agou, Anié, Tône and Bassar.

In details, 23.1 km of road (Avétonou-Messiobé-Kologan-Agokpala) will be rehabilitated in Agou while in Anié’s prefecture, a total of 40 km of road will be rehabilitated. PAPV will also lead to the rehabilitation of 25.2 km and 16 km of roads in the prefectures of Tône and Bassar respectively.

Rehabilitation and development works will be partly financed by the 2018 State budget. They include surfacing, leveling, suppression of critical points and sanitization infrastructures.

In this framework, PAPV has launched a restricted tender to select firms to perform the works which are divided into seven distinct categories. These firms will be given 8 months to complete the task.