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afrol.com, 21 January - The president of the West African Development Bank (WADB), Boni Yayi, is not happy that Benin is not using the credit it has access to. The bank's total credit set aside for Benin represents 19 percent of its commitments to the eight countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). But Benin ranks eighth among users of the facility. WAEMU also includes Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. "Commitments by the WADB to Benin are today around 112 billion CFA francs, placing Benin in second place among countries which could benefit from the bank, just behind Côte d'Ivoire," Yayi stated. One US dollar equals about 700 CFA francs. Benin is also second among WAEMU countries in private sector financing. "We think the time has come for us to be closer to both the Beninese state and economic operators of this country. We could strengthen even more the partnerships which exist between the West African Development Bank and Benin," he added. This sentiment was behind the 9 January signing, in Cotonou, of an agreement between the WADB and Benin to open a resident mission of the bank in the city. The agreement, according to Yayi, is a response to the institution's mission stated by the founding nations, which is to promote balanced development among member countries and to help realise economic integration in West Africa. The head of the WADB mission in Benin, Cheikh Omar Haidara, confirms that his priority is to get his major partner, the Beninese state, and secondary partners, such as private economic operators, together to find solutions to the problem of disinterest in the available credits. This problem, unfortunately, is not peculiar to the WADB. It is also an issue for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Union, and various foreign bilateral or multilateral co-operation funds. The reason for the disinterest is two-fold, explains Emmanuel Assilamehou, the technical secretary for the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and councillor to the Beninese Ministry of Finance. There are problems on both the state and lender sides. For the Beninese state, explains Assilamehou, the use of credits is often slowed down by time-consuming administrative procedures, lazy workers or real personnel shortages. The gap is also often due to bid applications which are poorly prepared, as much by public administrators as by the bidders. This often causes applications to be rejected, which only prolongs the procedure. At the lenders' level, the Beninese state says the time required for administrative procedures is too lengthy, notably the considerable time required to get approval by the lender. Beninese authorities are perfectly aware of the problems, Assilamehou insists. The managerial staff at the Ministry of Finance have often reflected upon the question, and right now are applying some of the proposed remedies, such as "simplification" of procedures while insuring that their accuracy is guaranteed. In addition, the power to create infrastructures in the public investment programme has been removed from the administration and given to special executive agencies. The Beninese state is also testing out the use of monitoring cards, which allow it to track administrative procedures and know how long it takes for each document to be processed by each service. Finally, Benin has also created operating procedure manuals which are in the process of being distributed. The manual, which will be put at the disposition of those who use the public administration, describes the processing journey of each document and sets out the maximum time limits that each service should need to process each document. - Benin has already lost the use of many credits accorded it because it was not able to apply for them on time, said Assilamehou. Each time that happens, there are hospitals, highways, rural roads, schools, and water conveyances which are not built, to the detriment of the Beninese people, he said. - This is of major concern of the Beninese government, which is seeking the ways and means to correct all that, he added. By Michee Boko, IPS
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