EPAs could cost Ghana US$5b, 43k jobs – CPP warns

The Convention People's Party (CPP) says signing the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) wouldn’t only put 43, 000 local jobs on the line, but also cost Ghana between US$1.12 billion and US$5.23 billion over a 14-year period.

The Party, in a statement signed by Communications Director, Nii Armah Akomfrah, said: “Signing the EPA will have a negative effect on the local manufacturing sector and put a minimum of 43,000 direct jobs at risk.”

In its view, “the tariff revenue loss for Ghana over the full implementation period of the EPA (through to 2022) is calculated to be in a minimum of $90 million annually".

“Ghana’s Ministry of Trade and Industry’s estimate is $150 million annually, and the United Nations and the South Centre’s estimate is $374 million annually. Therefore, Ghana is expected to lose between US$1.12 billion and US$5.23 billion over a 14-year-period – This is the equivalent of up to 30 highways or ultra- modern hospitals,” the CPP warned.

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 Ghana’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.

A lot of civil society groups are resisting the EPAs in Ghana. Nigeria has opted out of it. Beside the CPP, groups including the Ghana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Third World Network, Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), the Christian Council, Pentecostal Churches, amongst others, are against the agreements.

The CPP believes signing the Agreements will amount to surrendering Ghana’s sovereignty to foreigners.

It argues: “Signing the EPA would bar Ghana from entering into any trade agreement with a third party,” adding that: “While this secures the interest of the EU, it deprives Ghana of the opportunity to enter any trade agreement with other developing countries such as China, India or Brazil.”

“Overall, our ability to manoeuvre within our own policy space is curtailed,” it warned.

Apart from the fear of enslavement, job losses and cost, the party says: “Signing of the EPA will take away the use of [the useful import and export tariffs policy]…due to World Trade Organisation rules, which tie our hands and stop us from having flexibility and control over our own trade policy".

“Thus, we will lose the option of using tariffs and price mechanism as means of protecting our local industries and addressing our balance of payment deficits. The EPA will, therefore, derail our agenda to increase our manufacturing capacity and enhance our productive capabilities,” it cautioned.

Additionally, the CPP says the EPAs risk weakening regional integration efforts. “Current weaknesses stemming from conflicting and overlapping regional trade agendas means that signing the EPA will further undermine the development of regional markets.

“The ECOWAS region is an economic space and most of the domestic job-creating industries export mainly to the regional market. Going it alone and signing the EPA will attract retaliation from players, which want to protect their market, e.g. Nigeria. There is also the budding regional financial, services and infrastructure market that Ghanaian companies can tap into. The EPA will undermine common political solutions to common economic problems.”

Also, the CPP argues that signing the EPAs “will further de-industrialise the Ghanaian and West African economies with its negative effects on employment and employment creation.”

Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Hanna Tetteh, recently said signing the agreements 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.