Cina Lawson yesterday in a meeting by the heads of division and section of Togo Télécom and Togocel The process of transformation or merger of Togo Télécom and its subsidiary Togocel long announced has taken a cruising speed for a few days. It is now done, if not almost. Togo Télécom and Togocel will finally disappear from the telecommunications sector in Togo and make room for a new company called Togo Holding of electronic communications (TOGOCOM).
This was decided by the Council of Ministers on 13 July 2017. "The Council of Ministers adopted four decrees allowing the finalization of the transformation process of the Togo telecom group. This is a milestone in the transformation process of the TOGO TELECOM Group. The first decree adopted by the Board created, allocated and organized the holding company Togolese Electronic Communications (provisionally abbreviated TOGOCOM). Property of the State, TOGOCOM, the parent company, has a registered capital of 1 000 000 000 FCFA. It is the guarantor of the group's effectiveness and defines its strategy. In this capacity, it sets the objectives and controls the results of the 100% -owned subsidiaries. The second decree creates, Allocations and organization of the infrastructure subsidiary, temporarily called "Togo Infracom". This subsidiary is responsible for long-term investments as well as the construction and operation of fixed and mobile infrastructures. The third decree creates, allocates and organizes the subsidiary Service, temporarily called "Togo ServiceCom". This subsidiary offers convergent and innovative offers (voice and internet, fixed and mobile) to individual customers and companies. Finally, the fourth decree creates, allocates and organizes the subsidiary Installation and support to maintenance, temporarily called "Togo InstallCom". It is responsible for the installation, repair and maintenance of the equipment. Each of these subsidiaries has a registered capital of 500,000,000 FCFA.
With the adoption of these decrees, the government is committing concretely the reorganization of the TOGO TELECOM Group to make it more efficient. The benefits to our country are many: improving the quality of customer service; The extension of very high-speed Internet coverage to the population as a whole and the significant drop in prices, which will have to be aligned with the lowest prices on the continent. " Council of Ministers, which makes a very important point: "It is important to remember that this transformation is an internal operation that does not affect current services and operations; The companies Togo Telecom and Togo Cellulaire being attached as such to TOGOCOM. Pending the effective implementation of the new structures, the Council instructed the Minister of Posts and the Digital Economy to pay due attention to the social, technical and financial aspects of this transformation so that it responds Objectives pursued by the Government ".
Togo Telecom / Togocel: de facto dissolution and creation of 4 new companies
The communiqué relating to the Council of Ministers does not say so expressly, but it goes without saying that when Togo Telecom and its subsidiary Togocel are Dissolved and melted, like wax, into the large crab basket to which it is difficult to find a definitive name. Dissolving two companies that do not hold to create 4, with the goal of meeting the challenges, one must be from the regime in place to believe in this feat. Moreover, according to several authoritative sources, the precipitate project of reorganization of the Togo Télécom Group, totally different from the process that had been going on for more than a year, did not arouse enthusiasm during the Council of Ministers outside The one who carries it. A minister and not the least would have even had the courage to express reservations about the effectiveness of this project. But within the Komi Selom Klassou government, all ministers walk, but do not have the same price; We can not refuse anything to the one who carries this project, considering its privileged relations (sic) with the tenant of the palace of the Marina.
In the beginning was the bankruptcy of TOGO TELECOM under Sam Bikassam It
all started in 2005, maybe even before. At the moment when the keys of the company were entrusted to a friend of Faure Gnassingbé, Sam Bikassam Togo Telecom was more or less at best in its form. It then follows a management of the most calamitous. Gabegie, OTC markets ordered from adventurers in China, purchases of billions of new equipment unsuitable or not meeting standards, plunder of the company's funds for election campaigns of the RPT.
Driving at sight against the backdrop of plunder had led the company to the bottom of the abyss. Faced with the seriousness of the facts, then Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Kokouvi Dogbé, another personal friend of Faure Gnassingbé, Withdraws the signatures to the Director General Sam Bikassam whose management is most scandalous. This episode was a chronicle for months before the minister lost his post in a reshuffle. When Cina Kokovi Lawson took office, TOGO TELECOM in the trough of the wave was in cessation of payment of its debts, close to the cessation of payment of the wages of which part was taken in charge by its subsidiary TOGOCEL.
In spite of this disastrous record, the controversial Sam Bikassam finds his signature. But the comeback of the one who put the company on the knee is not long-lasting. Sam Bikassam is finally disembarked and circulates with impunity, even retaining certain advantages related to his former position. Nothing outrageous, Since under Faure Gnassingbé the looters enjoy a total impunity, better, of a promotion. As for state-owned companies or corporations, they are renamed, with the name of the FER, the SOTOCO, the SNPT, and the macabre cycle continues.
Cina Lawson sends as a savior a man who knows the house well and has contributed in one way or another to his descent into hell. Romain Tagba, Director of Cabinet at the Ministry of Posts and Digital Economy, has been appointed Acting DG of TOGO TELECOM, a skillful way for Cina Lawson to move away from his firm one of the last collaborators after pushing all Others to leave, making his department a department without a cabinet. For Romain Tagba, The task is immense and even titanic; A mission that comes down to the impossible, so much is society at the bottom of the abyss. This is where the idea of a merger with TOGOCEL, in order to raise TOGO TELECOM, has germinated.
The proposed merger of TOGO TELECOM and TOGOCEL .......
In 2015, the proposed merger of the two companies was announced. The first idea was that the parent company and its subsidiary, which make parallel investments, should work together and pool their resources. In this sense, certain works, such as the construction of optical fiber, maintenance of sites, orders for equipment should be done together in order to go to the ultimate creation of a TOGO TELECOM Group. It was this initial project which received the approval of the staff of the two companies. The head of this transformation project was appointed in the person of Ilagou AYEVA, an expert in the matter, nephew of the insubmersible Barry Moussa Barque. Work was underway with the executives of the two companies when one morning the Minister of Posts and Digital Economy puts over the project and the expert Ilagou AYEVA, a firm named MCKINSE.
Recruited by tender without tender, this firm was sent to recover the work carried out by the team led by Ilagou AYEVA. Worse, Minister Cina Lawson predicted that the MCKINSE firm would take on the positions of CEO and some directors of both companies. In other words, the CEO positions of both companies and their section heads will each have a duplicate. A trusteeship perceived as a provocation in both societies.
Faced with this situation, the leaders of the two companies and their heads of section sent a letter to Prime Minister Selom Komi Klassou informing him of the dangers of such an approach and at the same time denying MCKINSE. The signatories were subsequently received by the Prime Minister to discuss the anomalies related to the project. The grievances were taken into account and the Cabinet MCKINSE was rejected to give way again to the group of experts led by Ilagou AYEVA. Komi Klassou promised to report to his boss Faure Gnassingbé. The group of experts headed by Ilagou Ayeva quietly continued its work when on July 13, to the surprise, The Council of Ministers takes 4 decrees to announce another project that takes no account of the work done.
... at the Togolese Electronic Communications Holding of Cina Lawson
The decision taken in the Council of Ministers on July 13 took the members of the Ilagou AYEVA team by surprise and provoked a general surprise in the two companies where the staff is not only confused , But also worried. "Pending the effective implementation of the new structures, the Council has instructed the Minister of Posts and the Digital Economy to pay due attention to the social, technical and financial aspects of this transformation so that the latter Meets the objectives pursued by the government, "said the communiqué on the Council of Ministers. A week later, in accordance with these instructions, the department brought in a Canadian firm to accompany the two companies on the social, technical and financial aspects.
Even before the start of the work, the delegates and directors of the two companies recalled that there will be no redundancies because the problems of TOGO TELECOM that have led to this process do not come from the employees but from others People who flow softly from elsewhere. But at the beginning of the first discussions with the Canadian firm on Tuesday, July 18, the human resources managers of both companies realized that a layoff plan and voluntary departure is on the table. But given the complexity of the file, the Canadian cabinet would consider withdrawing.
A flutter that was not to the liking of the minister who puts Canadians aside and brings back the MCKINSE firm that the directors had already challenged. The continuation of this serial announces tense and palpitating. Already yesterday at a meeting at the Sazof, the heads of division and section of the two companies assailed the minister with questions. In this process of reorganization, and familiar with the customs in Togo, it is normal that from the outset, staff ensure the preservation of jobs.
Cina Lawson remained blurred on some aspects, although she assured officials that the jobs will be preserved. Another concern raised is the role of the famous firms that are sticking to the two companies and whose services are very dear to the company TOGOCEL who pays the bills. According to one source, the enormous amounts paid to these firms and consultants since the beginning of the process are enough to raise TOGO TELECOM from its bankruptcy. The process is now in its practical phase and the difficulties will not arise soon, remains to be seen if the Cabinet MCKINSE imposed yesterday to accompany this reorganization will be able to measure up.
TOGOCEL: the black box of the Ministry of Posts and the Digital Economy?
In a dossier devoted to the Ministry of Posts and the Digital Economy in one of our previous publications, we highlighted the serious dysfunctions of this department. For several years, It is the ministry that sees an exponential increase in its budget when one looks at the successive finance laws without any impact in the lived experience of the Togolese in terms of telecommunications usage. At the same time, it was the department that emptied all its managers. This ministry without Director of Cabinet, without Secretary General, is the most atypical or ghostly of the government of Selom Komi Klassou. For Minister Cina Lawson, telecommunications executives are not competent enough to her taste, worse, Togo would be a desert of skills, to speak like a president of the region.
It is therefore the foreign consultants whom the minister seeks to help her daily in her tasks, projects, With the result that very expensive invoices not to be borne by his ministry, but by TOGOCEL. A large part of the revenue of this company is aspired by consultants and other fantastic expenses to which we will return in the smallest details. Among these experts or consultants, there is one who is more than permanent in Togo, who speaks and represents the Togolese State in major meetings, to the amazement of experts from the IMF and the World Bank who wonder whether There is no Togolese competent to represent or speak on behalf of that country.
Sakho Oumar Diene, since he is the one in charge, is Senegalese, former director of ARTP and responsible for several institutions in his country. He is the handyman of the ministry. Paid at 4 million a month by Togocel, More than the Prime Minister of Togo, all its advantages are also borne by the mobile phone company, namely business class tickets, mission expenses, vehicle, maintenance, fuel, accommodation, care Health, etc. The cost of the ticket business class of one of his last trips that goes back to the beginning of July, for 5 days, was more than 9 million CFA francs to TOGOCEL. The department itself is straining the corporation's coffers for costly expenses.
Holding Togolese electronic communications, a project doomed to failure.
The idea of merging TOGO TELECOM and its subsidiary TOGOCEL, in order to use the good results of the second to raise the former is not so bad in itself. But the process, As it is currently being pursued, is aimed at unconfessed interests. There is a sell-off or even a spare parts sale of telecommunications in Togo, a sector not only strategic but also a growth carrier in all countries in the world. And in order to do this, everything has been implemented for years to put the sector at risk and use it as a pretext. For more than three years, the 4G fiber-optic projects, which should be used to make TOGOCEL's servers more fluid, with an impact on communication costs, have never been followed up by the ministry. These urgent files were stored in the drawers. Nothing at this stage is obvious that the objectives will be achieved.
The current project carries the seeds of its failure, In the image of the OTR whose gestation had also been the subject of strong criticism from the specialists. Benin and Niger have also embarked on this adventure without success. But in Togo, we do not seem to learn from these failures. The holding companies multiply at the top of the state and serve only obscure interests. The famous Togo Invest Corporation, whose true holders are unknown, has been burying the oil sector for several months. Shell was pushed out and a company called T-OIL to ghost shareholders has since pushed on its ashes. The mafia that now manages the oil sector in Togo lodges in the basement of the Ministry of Commerce (formerly BCEAO) with armored doors and surveillance cameras everywhere. It is the reporter of the famous Adzakli, The brain of all the tricks in the area.
Everything suggests that it is the same pattern for telecommunications where those who are organizing to dismantle the sector in several pieces now, in a false process called reorganization, are the same who recover the things behind the curtains. This is what a country becomes when leaders are also traders.
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