[ 2014-04-18 ]

EPAs might do the trick for ECOWAS’ industrialisation – Hanna Tetteh
Ghana’s foreign affairs minister Hanna Tetteh
says signing onto the Economic Partnership
Agreement might do the trick for industrialising
the ECOWAS sub region, since according to her, the
agreements could help foster better economic
integration.

“Have you heard of prohibition lists from
specific member states that say that particular
imports can’t go into their countries because as
a matter of fact they can manufacture them
themselves so they don’t need them from other
member states? Do we really think that ECOWAS is
the answer to our industrialisation problem? It
can be, but it needs a hell of a lot more work. It
needs commitment from the member-states to make
the ETLS work. And you know, an EPA might just do
the trick,” Hanna Tetteh said at a public forum
in Accra on the EPAs.

Ghana’s President John Mahama recently
complained about the tall list of trade
prohibitions from Nigeria, which he said limits
regional trade and by extension, frustrates
economic integration in the ECOWAS region.


Mr Mahama told an audience of the Africa Summit at
the London School of Economics that he found it
befuddling that Africa’s most populous country
is not respecting the Economic Trade
Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS) of the Economic
Community of West African States.

The Ghanaian President said Nigeria’s
protectionist measures do not bode well for
regional trade and integration, adding that the
country has more responsibility to foster the
integration agenda since it wields tremendous
economic power in the sub region.


“Nigeria has nothing to fear from Ghana in terms
of competition. Nigeria has nothing to fear from
Cote D’lvoire in terms of competition. Nigeria
has nothing to fear from Benin or Togo or Niger in
terms of competition and yet year in, year out,
there is a prohibition list,” he said.


Already seen as an economic giant in Africa,
Nigeria recently became the Continent’s biggest
economic hub after a rebasing exercise which
resulted in the oil-rich West African country
nudging off South Africa from the top.

Its GDP for 2013 totalled 80.3 trillion naira
(£307.6bn: $509.9bn). That compares with South
Africa's GDP of $370.3bn at the end of 2013.


Hanna Tetteh said at the Accra EPA forum held on
Thursday that Ghana, Nigeria and The Ivory Coast
could take advantage of such economic integration
to turn the region into a hub that will drive the
region’s industrial growth. She believes the
EPAs could help that process.

The EPAs are legally binding bilateral contracts
between the European Union (EU) and individual
African Caribbean Pacific countries.


Once signed, EPAs warrant that within two decades,
about 80% of that country’s market should open
to European goods and services tariff-free. The
European Parliament has granted the African
countries an extension until October 2014 to
ratify their interim EPAs.

There’s a phalanx of civil society organisations
resisting the signing of the EPAs in Ghana. The
Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC), the Christian
Council of Ghana, the Ghana Chamber of Commerce,
the Socialist Forum, and the Economic Justice
Network of Ghana are among some of the harshest
critics. They have petitioned President John
Mahama against signing it. West African giant
Nigeria has said it will not sign the agreement.

At a recent meeting of African heads of state at
Yamoussoukro in The Ivory Coast over the EPAs,
Hanna Tetteh told Journalists: “we can’t have
a single country position. That is the whole thing
about having a regional agreement. We must have a
regional consensus.”


According to her, “it’s not a question of what
is Ghana’s stance because this is an ECOWAS
decision. Either we all agree or we don’t
agree.”

Source - Radio XYZ

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