Announcement of Eight Hundred Thousand Dollar Credit for Telecommunications in Upper Volta on February 12, 1969

o"'~ 1\1.u,.,,,~4> • INTERNATIONAL DEVELOP?dENT ASSOCIATION (~) 1818 H STREET, N.W .. WASHINGTON D. C. 20433 TELEPHONE: EXECUTIVE 3-6360 IDA Press Release No. 69/6 Subject: $800,000 credit for tele- February 12, 1969 connnunications in Upper Volta The first lending operation by the World Bank Group in Upper Volta was an- nounced today. A credit of $800,000 from the International Development Asso- ciation (IDA) will help to carry forward the expansion and rehabilitation of the telecormnunications system. The IDA credit will be for a term of 50 years, including 10 years of grace. It will be free of interest but a service charge of 3/4 of 1% will be made to cover IDA' s administrative. costs. • The existing teleconununications system in Upper Volta is very modest, and closely reflects the geographical pattern of economic and administrative activi- ties. Most of it has been developed in and between the two main cities, Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, and towards the Ivory Coast border along the railway to Abidjan. Telephone density is the lowest in Africa. The project being assisted by the IDA credit is part of an interim program urgently needed to improve and extend the available facilities. Its main objec- tives are to rehabilitate existing local and long-distance networks and to pro- vide for some expansion to these networks which will result in better and in- creased use of equipment recently installed with the assistance of the French Fonds d'Aide et de Cooperation and of the United States Agency for International Development. The project includes the renewal and expansion of the local tele- phone subscriber networks in Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, where automatic • /core IDA P.R. No. 69/6 - Upper Volta Telecommunications - 2 - telephone exchanges are in service, and the improvement and expansion of over- • head lines and toll telephone installations along some routes of the long- distance network. Postal and teleconaunications services in Upper Volta are operated by the Office of Posts and Telecommunications, a public entity with corporate financial and coomercial autonomy, which the Government established on January 1, 1969. Funds from the 1DA credit will also be used for assistance in setting up the newly created Office and in training its staff. The project will be carried out during the three years 1969-1971 at a total cost equivalent to $1.2 mil- lion; the local share of financing will be covered by cash generated from the operation of the Office. - 0 ~ • •