Majority Leader and Leader of the Gambian delegation to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, Billay G. Tunkara says many member states within the sub-region are not really prepared to take advantage of the taking off of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
According to him AfCFTA comes with a price that is why there are reservations in terms of sensitive and special goods in the agreement, “one you are letting go of so many revenues that you will collect”.
He noted in an interview that, when AfCFTA comes into force, member states in the sub-region will be losing huge revenues since it has become an African thing and even with ECOWAS establishment looking at free movement of goods and services.
“Gambia which is a tax base economy, if you ask me to leave thirty percent of my revenue, you are putting pressure on my economy and we as West Africans. We have to look inward, what we have as our potential to produce and sell in the market at the end of the day we do not want to be seen as the damping place of the African continental market”.
As a country you do not enter into these things and you do not have the capacity to become more industrious economy, you have very few industries in your country to produce, “where do you sell at the end of the day we become recipient, you become the damping ground of finished goods. As a sub-region we should be prepared to produce to send to other regional blocks not only creating the market?”
Again, the former chairman of the Trade Committee in the Gambian parliament expressed worry over some multilateral companies taking advantage of the whole AfCFTA despite they have their origins from Europe. Instead of paying taxes in their home country, they will come and set up sub-factories in the sub-region or African continent.
Just to make sure they avoid all the taxes and to abuse the market. He explained that these are all things one needs to put into consideration. “If you are to export from say Germany you will pay customs fees, but if you have a factory within the African continent, you now push your goods in the name of AfCFTA, which means you enjoy certain privileges, certain wavers which ordinary if you were not on the African continent you will have paid some money”.
He asserts that all these issues are issues that as a sub-region we should be mindful of as it goes beyond integration, it has some economic consequences.
As to whether the sub-region as a bloc will get to realise AfCFTA, he noted that we will get there, let us see how it will unfold because countries do not let all their taxes out, there are certain tariffs they keep.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com
The President made the call when he addressed the staff, management and guests of the NLA, at their 60th anniversary celebration on Friday 9 December 2022, at the forecourt of the office complex of the NLA in Accra.
“One of the things that is most threatening to lottery that gives back to good courses are those illegal folks who do nothing. They don’t pay any taxes, they don’t give any money to good causes and they don’t follow the same rules and standards that those of us who are government sanctioned follow” the WLA President, Rebecca Paul said.
he Majority Leader, Osei-Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, after having his bit on the debate as the final contributor announced that his side would not be part of the ballot process and that they have washed their hands from the rest of the process.
The failure however, was due to the fact that the Majority group staged a walk out just after the conclusion of the debate.
They have visited the National Assembly of Senegal and Amy Ndiaye at the hospital.
And one of the reasons that the award is special is that it comes almost three decades after the recipient last held office and comes most five years after he passed away and that to him signals an enduring legacy.
Again, it goes to prove how enduring his legacy in terms of the brooder significance the ward was made, his peace keeping and conflict resolution came out that started before ECOWAS. He was very active in that before the establishment of ECOWAS. It is an opportunity to congratulate the current leadership of ECOWAS, he said.
“I said first past the post system, the country shall be divided according to the population quota. There was a census in Sierra Leone in December last year which means the population quota that existed for those constituencies no longer exist. And because of that the president has pronounced the date for the presidential and legislative elections; then national electoral commission of Sierra Leone, they will not be able to go and give quota and divide the place into constituencies based on the current population quota. The last census was in 2015”.
And the problem in Sierra Leone is not inter-party politics; rather it is the intra-party politics. The problem is that the main opposition is in a very serious problem; they are in and out of court every day fighting each other every day and government has nothing to do with that and Hon Edwin Snowe and Hon Momolu Massaquoi know what I am talking about.