A key figure has been Cina Lawson Togo's Minister of Digital Economy and Transformation who has held this portfolio with minor changes in name since 2010...
Cina Lawson is one of several women at the heart of Togo's government with close links to the President...
Cina Lawson consulted Dominique Taieb of the Polyconseil consultancy in early 2011 on the architecture of the digital environment for new media and fibre-optics according to Togolese opposition media...
Neither Cina Lawson the ministry Taieb nor Polyconseil responded to our requests to clarify these relationships...
The role of Bolloré's companies in this process can hardly have escaped Cina Lawson...
When it came to awarding contracts for fibre-optics and internet service provision Cina Lawson's ministry issued a tender document in August 2016 specifying that only two contracts would be issued...
On 31 May Cina Lawson declared that the fibre-optics award had gone to GVA-Togo (while the second contract went to Teolis SA) and a ceremony followed a week later...
If there were any doubt that at the centre of all this activity stood Bolloré it was dispelled when 10 days after the formal issue of the awards Gafan the CEO of Bolloré Africa Logistics in Togo entered into the capital of GVA-Togo with 14% of the shares while 1% went to Richard Aquéréburu (who happens also to be the uncle of Cina Lawson and her sisters Cathia Lawson-Hall and Sonia Lawson – see Box: Three sisters with connections)...
Three sisters with connections Telecoms and Digitisation Minister Cina Lawson has courted controversy for being the responsible minister when the government shut down the internet in September 2017 as part of an effort to curb anti-government protests (although GVA Togo was not yet providing internet services then)...
Raised and educated in France Cina Lawson has been the darling of awards ceremonies for African women in business and government...
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Vol 4 (AAC) No 9 |
- SINGAPORE
The Togolese delegation which included Minister of Energy and Mines Noupokou Dammipi and Post and Telecommunications Minister Cina Lawson studied Singapore’s expertise as an exporter financial services centre and provider of port services...