The World Bank will ask donors to clear debts of some $135 million owed to it by Togo after the West African state held multiparty polls in October, the Bank's representative in the former French colony said on Wednesday.
"We're quickly going to normalise relations between the World Bank and Togo. That means clearing the debts Togo owes to the Bank," James Bond, the Bank's director of operations in Togo, told reporters."Together with our partners in Washington we're going to find a solution, we're going to plead for Togo not to have to pay," he said.
He estimated that Togo's debts to the bank stood at $135 million and were increasing by $2 million each month.
The announcement comes weeks after the European Union restored full economic cooperation with Togo after a 14-year hiatus, citing the successful holding of parliamentary elections on October 14.
The EU, Togo's biggest donor, froze most aid in 1993 because of what it considered a poor democratic record in the country, which had suffered decades of authoritarian rule and periods of bloody unrest since independence in 1960.
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