News:
July 17, 2020
A representative of Ghana, in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, Mahama Ayariga is advocating for common dates, for the re-opening of airports and borders in the sub-region in this COVID-19 period.
According to him working in the sub-region independently without reference to one another is not good as he hears Ivory Coast and some others are planning to open their airports.
Again, other countries have not given indications of when they would open their airports and borders, that is very unfortunate, he said.
In an interview he pointed out that there should be a common measure at the various entering points, “I should not be subjected to a different regime when I enter Liberia and Niger when I enter Lagos, I should have same regime”.
He further pointed out that it should not be the case that when he enters Ghana he has to observe fourteen days quarantine and added that it becomes meaningless when countries within the sub-region do not have the same set of standards.
Ahead of the ECOWAS Parliament’s Second Extraordinary Session via virtual zoom, starting from July 20 to 25, 2020 Mahama Ayariga noted that the issue would come up for debate and hope imputes would be made for the consideration to the Council of Ministers despite being too late in the day.
This is an issue that should have been on the table of the Authority of Heads of States long ago and working together on and added that he has the feeling that they are not working together but rather working separately as individual countries.
Mr. Ayariga revealed that the sub-region should realize that the various borders are porous and no country can effectively police its borders, and explained there are some border towns in the West African sub-region that only a water body separates the two countries.
“There are people who live in country A but attend market in country B, there are no walls separating them they have same culture, speak same language so the boundaries are artificial, we should work together and stop pretending that we are separate entities if we want a common solution to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com