27th ECOWAS meeting to be held on Monday

Dr. Kofi Konadu Apraku, Minister of Regional Cooperation and NEPAD on Thursday said despite the achievements of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), within its 28 years of existence, its integration process was not moving forward.

He said: "we still find numerous check points on our highways, while some member states are not implementing the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme and other protocols faithfully. The total volume of intra-regional trade is still too low".

Dr Apraku has therefore, urged all local trade unions in the sub-region to use their local structures to raise awareness and popularise the concept of regional integration.

He said Ghana on her part intends to pay greater attention to civil society in its integration efforts by seeking views and inputs from trade unions, professional associations, the media, academicians, researchers and non-governmental organisations while the civil society would be informed more regularly about how the integration process was being implemented.

Speaking at a press briefing to announce the up-coming 27th ECOWAS Summit to be held in Accra from December 15 to 19, Dr Apraku said the government of Ghana had adopted a new strategy of holding bilateral talks with her close neighbours to ensure a faster movement of the integration process.

The summit, to be attended by the 15 Heads of State and government, Ministers of State, governors of Central Banks and distinguished personalities from the international institutions has vital historical linkage with the endeavours of the people of the sub-region to accelerate economic growth and development.

It would be preceded by some statutory meetings of the community, including the 51st Session of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers, the 10th meeting of the Committee of Governors of West African Monetary Zone and the 13th meeting of the Convergence Council of the West African Monetary Zone.

Other meetings to precede the summit would be the meetings of the ECOWAS Ministers of Foreign Affairs and an extraordinary meeting of the Board of Governors of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development.

Dr Apraku said a successful integration of West African states would result in the removal of prevailing tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, which would translate into a reduction of production costs and consequently lead to a lowering of prices of export products, thus making Ghanaian exporters more competitive.

He said a single large market of about 250 million ECOWAS people would also attract more foreign investment and as Ghana was preparing itself to become the real gateway to the ECOWAS market, Ghanaian companies would be direct beneficiaries of the investment inflows.

On the production front, Dr Apraku said ECOWAS was pursuing a joint industrial and agricultural policy, which would encourage the setting up of capital intensive industries that would lead to better resource allocation within and between member countries.

The Minister said that despite the small pace of implementation of ECOWAS protocols, major achievement like the adoption of a protocol that made it possible for the free movement of community citizens throughout the region had been achieved.

He said currently, West Africans do not need entry visas for any ECOWAS member state and that the adoption of the ECOWAS passport, which was, now in used in Benin and Senegal would be issued among the states to replace individual national passports by 2005.

He however called for the strengthening of existing laws to deal with immigrants who might float protocol laws in the Sub-region to ensure that "people do not come in to abuse our laws".

Dr Apraku mentioned poor infrastructure as a major hindrance to the development of the regional export sector and said ECOWAS has therefore made development of regional infrastructural networks a top priority.

Concerning air transport, the Minister said ECOWAS was encouraging the application of the Yamoussoukro declaration on the liberalisation of air transport and that the Community was working to ensure air safety through the modernisation of the regional aeronautical navigation system.

He said the West African Central Bank, which would manage and issue the West African Monetary Zone currency have been adopted by the five participating states and "Eco" has been adopted as the name of the currency.

He explained that the statutes of the Central Bank would be formally signed during the forthcoming summit in Accra, while the location of its headquarters would be decided upon.