The Board of Directors of the West African Development Bank (BOAD) has approved a 196.6 billion CFA francs support (about US$ 314.560 million) to member states of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) as part of the fight against COVID-19.
According to BOAD officials who held on Wednesday their 116th ordinary session in videoconference, this support was provided in conjunction with the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) and the UEMOA Commission.
“On the proposal of the bank’s Chairman, the members of the Board of Directors agreed to grant each UEMOA member state a loan of 15 billion CFA francs with immediate availability, subsidized by the BOAD subsidy mechanism recently subscribed to within the framework of support to states fighting the COVID-19 by BCEAO for an amount of 25 billion CFA francs and the UEMOA Commission for an amount of 15 billion CFA francs,” the bank said.
The total amount of these subsidized loans thus amounts to 120 billion CFA francs for urgent measures to deal with the Coronavirus health crisis. Council members also decided to suspend capital calls for an amount of 76.6 billion CFA francs of debts due for the rest of the year to support their responses to the Coronavirus pandemic.
BOAD Board of Directors also approved new operations including eight medium and long-term loans amounting to 148.1 billion CFA francs and a short-term loan of 10 billion CFA francs. These operations bring BOAD’s total commitments (all operations combined) to 5817.8 billion CFA francs.
MS/te/lb/Dng/APA