The Board of Directors of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) has approved sixty-eight million, one hundred and five thousand, three hundred and fifty united states dollars, forty-two cents (US$68,105,350.42) for the funding of public and private sector projects, during its 75th Meeting held on 1st October 2021, at the Bank’s headquarters in Lomé, Togolese Republic. The President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of EBID, Dr. George Agyekum Donkor, reiterated that the funding – which further heightens the Bank’s commitment to achieve the objectives of its Strategy 2021-2025 – will address infrastructure gaps in key sectors such as health, industry, agribusiness, and trade, in 4 member states of ECOWAS namely Togo, Cote D’ivoirie, Ghana and Senegal.
Among the projects approved was the construction of a 60-bed specialized state of the art medical referral facility valued at twelve million, one hundred and fifty- seven thousand united states dollars ($12,157,000.00) at Camp General Gnassingbe Eyadema in Togo. This will ensure world-class healthcare delivery and access to quality health care services in addition to the creation of an estimated 435 jobs among other benefits. In Issia, Côte d’Ivoire, the Board approved the construction of a semi-industrial processing plant (crushing plant and washing line) to the tune of eight million, two hundred and ninety-six thousand, four hundred and eleven united states dollars, and thirty-six cents (US$8,296,411.36), which is intended to exploit and add value to the Coltan mining potential.
There was a further approval of 2 lines of credit to the Universal Merchant Bank Limited (UMB) based in Accra, Ghana, for the sum of thirty million united states dollars (US$30,000,000.00) and “Banque Nationale pour le Développement Economique (BNDE)” in the Republic of Senegal, for the sum of seventeen million, six hundred and fifty-one thousand, nine hundred and thirty-nine united states dollars, and six cents ($17,651,939.06) respectively. The approved credit lines will provide the respective Banks with stable resources to improve the coverage rate of their long- and medium-term commitments with specific reference to SMEs/SMIs and effectively enhance their intervention capacities. The focus will be the funding of activities related to the development and promotion of SMEs/SMIs through the provision of financing for processing and industrialisation in the agribusiness, health, services, and infrastructure sectors.
Finally, the Board gave approval for a twenty-million-united states dollar ($20,000,000.00) line of credit which will be made available to companies in the ECOWAS sub-region to source goods and services from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or UAE-related companies to boost commerce and trade. The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) is a leading regional Investment and Development Bank, based in Lomé, Togo Republic, owned by the fifteen (15) Member States namely, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. EBID, has over the past 4 decades, invested approximately US$2.8 billion in inter and intra-regional development programmes, covering diverse initiatives from infrastructure and basic amenities, rural development and environment, industry, social sector, and services. EBID intervenes through long, medium and short-term loans, equity participation, lines of credit, refinancing, financial engineering operations and services.
