LOME, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- The West African Development Bank (BOAD) on Thursday granted a loan of 20 billion CFA francs (33.7 million U.S. dollars) to the Togolese government to fund a road project.
BOAD president Christian Adovelande and Togolese Minister of Economy and Finance Sani Yaya signed the loan agreement at the BOAD headquarters here.
The funds will be used to upgrade and asphalt a 60 km-long road linking the northern Togolese towns of Katchamba and Sadori, and build two bridges over the Kara and Koumongou rivers.
BOAD has provided a total of 605.4 billion CFA francs (1 billion dollars) for Togo so far, of which 246 billion CFA francs (414.7 million dollars) was used to support construction of transport infrastructure.
"The (infrastructure) projects will reduce by 66 percent the traveling time on the road and by at least 60 percent the vehicle operation cost," he said.
Adovelande said the lending is consistent with Togo's 2018-2022 national development plan and the 2015-2019 BOAD strategic plan, which outlined key actions to promote regional development.
The Togolese government has made considerable investment to develop and upgrade transport infrastructure in recent years, Yaya said.
More than 800 km-long road has been constructed or rehabilitated in 2010-2018, costing almost 680 billion CFA francs (1.1 billion dollars). "Over the same period, over 4,000 km rural road was built and rehabilitated for over 61 billion CFA francs (102.8 million dollars)," he added.
BOAD is a multilateral development bank established in 1973 to serve the nations of Francophone and Lusophone West Africa, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
