Togo: Government takes new social measures to deal with the high cost of living

Social

Tuesday, 20 September 2022 14:11

Togo: Government takes new social measures to deal with the high cost of living

(Togo First) - The Togolese President, Faure Gnassingbé, announced last Friday (Sept 16) 10 new social measures to help his people better cope with inflation.

These include a 10% increase in the index value of salaries and retirement pensions for civilian and military civil servants, i.e. an annual amount of 22.5 billion CFA francs, and an additional 5% increase in the retirement pension for all retirees in the civilian and military public sector and the private sector.

The Togolese leader also granted a monthly transport allowance of 10,000 CFA francs on an exceptional basis for each state official, "payable outside the bulletin to cope with the increase in travel costs", corresponding to an annual budgetary cost of 8.8 billion CFA francs as well as a bonus for the balance of the salary advance granted in January 2022 to civil servants and retirees on the remaining 8 months to be repaid, equivalent to 7.1 billion CFA francs.

For the next school year, the new provisions include a special bonus of 3 billion CFA francs (via direct cash transfers) for students’ parents to buy supplies. They will also receive 2.5 billion CFA francs of subsidies to get writing and reading manuals for primary school students.

Other social measures include increasing fertilizer subsidy from 6 billion CFA francs to 7.5 billion CFA francs, same for the subsidy on petroleum products which is set to rise from 30 billion CFA francs to 37.8 billion CFA francs. There will also be an additional allocation of the subsidy on domestic gas, from 7.7 billion CFA francs to 9.3 billion CFA francs.

President Gnassingbé also announced the continued application of fiscal measures favoring the private sector, as part of the health emergency.

These new measures were taken after talks between the government and social actors, in line with the first axis of Togo’s 2025 government roadmap.

Esaïe Edoh

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