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 dollars ($68,105,350) funding for projects in some selected West African countries, of which Ghana is one of the four selected countries to benefit.
An official statement issued in Accra by the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of EBID, disclosed that, the approval was given during ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development’s 75th General Meeting held in Lomé, Togolese Republic. In the interim, the beneficiary countries include: Togo, Cote D’ivoirie, Ghana and Senegal.
Dr. George Agyekum Donkor, the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of EBID, reiterated that the funding heightens the Bank’s commitment to achieve the objectives of its Strategy for 2021-2025. He indicated that the fund would address infrastructure gaps in key sectors such as health, industry, agribusiness, and trade, in the four member states of ECOWAS.
Among the projects approved was the construction of a 60-bed specialised state of the art medical referral facility valued at 12,157,000 dollars at Camp General Gnassingbe Eyadema in Togo. This will ensure world-class healthcare delivery and access to quality health care services. In addition, the state of the art medical referral facility is estimated to create over 435 jobs and 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 8,296,411.36 million dollars, which is intended to exploit and add value to the Coltan mining potential in the West African Country.
Moreover, there was an approval of two lines of credit to the Universal Merchant Bank Limited (UMB) based in Accra, Ghana, to the tune of thirty million dollars (30,000,000) million dollars. The ‘Banque Nationale pour le Développement Economique (BNDE)’ in the Republic of Senegal, was also approved of the total sum of seventeen million, six hundred and fifty-one thousand, nine hundred and thirty-nine United States Dollars, and six cents (US$17,651,939.06).
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 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)/Small and Medium Industries (SMIs) and to effectively enhance their intervention capacities.
The main focus of these two banks will be tailored towards 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.
The Board further gave approval for a twenty-million-United States Dollars (US$20,000,000.00) line of credit, which will be made available to some companies in the Economic Community of West African States (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 the financial institution established by the 15 Member States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It has championed many developmental projects in the sub regions.
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