Is it over like this? This questioning of a compatriot, in the course of a discussion on the report of the audit of the Court of Auditors and the commotion once morest a background of Holocaust denial of the rulers who brush aside any embezzlement, is very legitimate. The power seems to have succeeded in imposing its truth (sic) on the Togolese and stifling this scandal (embezzlement of Covid funds) which continues to make waves in other countries, like Senegal. But what do the financial partners of Togo who have put their hands in their pockets say? Do they also accept the diet version? Will they be fooled and turn a blind eye to this nth scandal?
Financial scandals and cases of embezzlement of public funds, Togo under the governance of the financial expert (sic) has known plenty. But this one will have marked the spirits by its scale and the implication of the members of the government and the ostentatious denialism of the executive.
No diversion, move on!
Case closed, this is how this scandal should be described, at least the conclusion to which the power in place seems to be pushing public opinion. The government denies the existence of embezzlement and even any suspicion of attempted embezzlement of Covid-19 funds. The health emergency situation authorizes the violation of the regulatory provisions, the Court of Auditors has nowhere spoken of embezzlement, so there was no embezzlement of funds, such is the logic.
If Holocaust denial has started since the press echoed the audit report published by the Court of Auditors on its website, with a government press release denying any embezzlement, the must (sic) will have been the interpellation in Parliament of the government on this file. But the advertised elephant arrived with a broken foot. This meeting at the National Assembly “UNIRcolore” was only a staging animated by friends, with explanations that sometimes border on the ridiculous. She will have convinced more than one that Togo is unique.
There is no need to go back over the monster irregularities qualified, by euphemism, as observations by the Court of Auditors which, according to the persons advised, was not authorized by its mission letter to qualify the anomalies observed and to go so far as to speak of diversion. But any reading between the lines makes it possible to get to the fact of the real connotation of these famous observations. Some explanations from ministers still ring in people’s minds, due to their fragile nature.
It is not superfluous to recall that at the end of its audit, the Court of Auditors took care to send a first draft of the report to all the ministers concerned for their observations and most of them disregarded it by opting for the silence. It was following this step that the institution refined its report and sent it to whom it may concern. Did the ministers who distinguished themselves in Parliament through this comedy have these explanations and they did not send them to the Court of Auditors for it to review its copy?
The Minister of Human Rights in charge of relations with the institutions of the Republic Christian Trimua, with his indirect threat of prosecution and condemnation of the media and journalists who have spoken of embezzlement, will have finished nailing the beak for good to the last reckless . Even if civil society organizations announce complaints once morest X in this case of economic crimes, God only knows if they will have a follow-up if they have the courage to actually file them. Case closed then and to the next scandal.
What are Togo’s donors saying?
The Response and Solidarity Fund once morest Covid-19 (FRSC), as a reminder, is set up by the government by ordinance n ° 2020-002 of May 11, 2020 and endowed with an amount of 400 billion CFA francs. Mobilizable over several years, it is distributed as follows: health response (110 billion), resilience (110 billion) and economic recovery (180 billion) and the resources are made up of funds allocated by the State, funding from technical and financial partners. (TFP), contributions from the national and international private sector, donations and bequests of all kinds.
Almost all of the funds used, at least the largest part, in the 2020 management register, come from Togo’s technical and financial partners. Among them, the African Development Bank (BAD+FAD), the French Development Agency (AFD), the World Bank (WB – IDA), the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), the European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA). And the funds are made up of donations, loans to be repaid; there were also in-kind donations.
In the register of donations, the FRSC received an amount of 36.8 billion FCFA from these technical and financial partners. Loans to be repaid by Togo amount to 141.4 billion FCFA. Over the year 2020, a total amount of 178 billion FCFA was received from partners and a whopping 108 billion FCFA was spent. For the years 2021 and 2022, further disbursements have been made. In short, it is therefore the partners’ money that has been the object of these manipulations.
Far from the allegations of the power making believe that the audit of the management of the funds would be its initiative, the audit is a requirement of the ADB and the African Development Fund (ADF) well registered in the memorandum of understanding. We would like as proof of this only the mission letter n°001/2021/CC/PC/LM of January 28, 2021 from the President of the first chamber of the Court of Auditors appointing Mr. Pilouzoue Tchalouw Bouwessodjolo as rapporteur and head of mission .
“By letter No. 0396/MEF/SP-PRPF/BM & BAD of October 08, 2020, the Permanent Secretariat for the monitoring of reform policies and financial programs seized the Court with a view to enabling it to take steps to prepare the audits provided for under the Grant Protocol Agreement and the two loan agreements signed on August 6, 2020 between the Togolese Republic on the one hand, the African Development Fund on the other hand, and the African Development Bank development on the other hand”, it reads.
Will the FAD and the AfDB be fooled? The common Togolese would be curious to see the reaction of all the development partners who have contributed to this fund, following this rock bottom of the regime in place to stifle this scandal because of the proportion of people involved. It is also their credibility in the eyes of the Togolese that is at stake…
Source: L’Alternative / presse-alternative.info
