Category: General

The third Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Regional Trade Facilitation Committee meeting has commenced in the capital of Ghana – Accra which brought together stakeholders in the trade sector from the West Africa sub-region both from government and private sector.

In a speech read on her behalf ECOWAS Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture Massandje Toure-Litse by acting director of trade Kolawole A. Sofola he  noted that trade facilitation is not an option but imperative in the wake of the world experiencing unprecedented levels of instability including public health, geopolitical tensions, trade protectionism as well as other external shocks.

With severely disrupted international supply chain that had lead to among others inflation, food insecurity, unemployment its therefore important to point out the importance trade facilitation in deed trade facilitation appear to be one of the solutions mitigate some of these threats.

She recall the importance of the WTO trade facilitation agreement which aims to improve the movement of goods across borders by ensuring transparency, flexibility, simplification and of harmonisation of cross border trade transaction, as well as digitalisation and automation of clearing process at the borders, as the meeting is a continuation of their previous meetings, which pursue the operationalisation for the committee to play its role to deepen regional integration, boost inter regional trade in line with ECOWAS vision 2050.

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The House in a vote today has approved the appointment of six Ministerial nominees presented by the Appointment Committee in accordance with Article 79(1) of the 1992 Constitution.

Out of the 275 Members of Parliament eligible to vote, three were absent while the remaining 272 Members successfully cast their ballots.

The approved Ministers include Hon. K.T Hammond as Minister for Trade and Industry, Hon. Bryan Acheampong as Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr. Stephen Asamoah Boateng as Minister of Religious Affairs and Chieftaincy, Hon. Mohammed Amin Adams as Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Osei Bonsu Amoah as Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, and Hon. Stephen Amoah as Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry.

On Thursday, the Appointments Committee presented their report on the nominees to Parliament, which was followed by a vote that occurred today, March 24th, 2023. These appointments were made to fill vacancies that were created by the resignations of three previous Ministers.

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Chairman of the Committee on Political Affairs, Peace, Security and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM); of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, Senator Edwin Melvin Snowe Jr. has said on conflict resolution the West African sub-region has a success story to share with the rest of the world.

According to him he is delighted that ahead of the five days high level ECOWAS training and experience sharing in the Hague Netherlands from March 27 to 31, 2023 on exploring negotiation and mediation as instrument for conflict resolution, “We have our own experience we can share about the West Africa sub-region we have had situations in our region that through dialogue we have been able to mediate, ECOMOG is an example of some the things that we have achieved over the years”.

In a telephone interview he recounted that the sub-region has troops in Guinea Bissau and in the Gambia, as well as continuous dialogue in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, “as well do not forget Europe NATO does have an ongoing war in Ukraine and Russia dialogue should have been a proper way to go.

But they could not reach a dialogue and there has been full scale war that has lasted over a year, despite the fact that the sub-region has its own ups and downs, likewise Europe, and the sub-region would be sharing their own views and experience on some of the things that they have been able to work on over the years.

He further pointed out that there has been tension in the West Africa sub-region over the years, there has been problem with the close of the border between Benin and Nigeria, likewise tension within member states.

“We have been able to resolve them and even in the just ended Nigerian general elections, there are aggrieved parties we were able to speak to them that the way out is going through the legal process”.

Leader of the Liberian delegation to the Community Parliament believes the sub-region has done a lot with a lot of experience to share to the rest of the World, and something to learn from the upcoming training on Monday, March 27, 2023 and build upon their short comings.

The aim of the programme is to further strengthen negotiation and mediation skills and to facilitate the exchange of experiences of representatives from the ECOWAS Commission, Member States and Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’.

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The Minority in Parliament Parliament is insisting on having the voting on President Nana Akufo-Addo’s ministerial nominees done on Friday, March, 24, 2023 after the exercise was suspended.

There was chaos in Parliament after the Speaker, Alban Bagbin, suspended sitting due to the failure of both sides to agree on how to vote for the approval of two Supreme Court Justices and Ministers and deputy ministers nominated by President Akufo-Addo.

The Majority demanded that voting for the Supreme Court Justices and the Ministers be done concurrently, but the Minority insisted that voting and counting be done separately.

The Majority also demanded that MPs from their side openly display their vote, but that was immediately shot down by the Minority who demanded that voting be done in secret.

The Minority led by Cassiel Ato Forson vehemently rejected the proposal of the Majority and urged the Speaker to allow MPs to vote in secret.

Speaking after the sitting was suspended, the Minority Leader, Dr. Ato Forson insisted that they will not have the voting any other day than today.

“We want the voting today, Friday, March 24, 2023, and not any other day. We urge those on the Majority side to return to Parliament immediately, so we vote.”

“We are ready with all our MPs – 136 and want the voting right away.”

Prior to the vetting of the newly nominated ministers on Monday, February 20, 2023, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) directed the Minority group not to approve them, describing their appointments as an insensitive move that would increase the government’s expenditure in the midst of an economic mess.

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The minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Parliament has been vindicated by Aker Energy’s decision to relinquish its interest in the AGM South Deep Water Tano Cape Three Points (SDWT/CTP) block, deputy Minority Leader, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah has stated.

According to him, the minority during a debate on the floor of the House on the deal in 2021 vehemently opposed the proposed sale of the block to government at the cost of GHc1.65billion, arguing that it was not in the interest of the nation.

Addressing a press conference in response to a news publication that suggests that, the minority has been silent on the decision by AGM, a subsidiary of AKER Energy, to pull out of the US$1.65 billion transaction with the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), the former Energy minister showed videos of himself debating against the proposed sale on the floor as a vindication of his side.

Energy Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh told parliament that government fully backed GNPC’s decision to acquire stakes in the $1.6bn Aker-AGM deal to acquire 70% stake in the South Deep Water Tano (SDWT/CTP) and another 37% stake in the Deep Water Tano/Cape Three Points (DWT/CTP).

Until the recent announcement, the SDWT/CTP was operated by AGM Petroleum Ghana Limited while the DWT/CTP is operated by Aker Energy Ghana Limited.

Apart from the NDC minority, some civil society organisations have raised issues about the acquisition describing it as threatening the country’s economic and fiscal outlook.

The CSOs who raised red flags about the valuation includes IMANI Africa, Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) and other petroleum among other energy experts.

According to the Ellembelle MP, the minority stood up for Ghanaians when AKER tried to sell the AGM block emphasizing that it was not of value and was risky but the NPP Government nearly paid over $1 billion for it.

“The minority in parliament stood up when Aker tried to sell the AGM south deep water Tano block, we stood up and spoke and we will never betray the people of Ghana.

“We want to basically let the people of Ghana know that we stood up. We continue to stand up, when it came to the issue of Aker basically coming to parliament to water down our take as a country and to reduce the power of the regulator the Petroleum commission, we spoke about it. We insisted it was wrong and today we know it; AKER has basically been dilly-dallying the people of Ghana and has not developed our fields. Sadly, we have three development fields,” Mr. Armah-Kofi Buah stated.

Ghana would have lost over $1billion had GNPC acquire the blocks but for the minority’s opposition to the deal.

The caucus said the recent announcement by AGM of relinquishing the block vindicates its position against the propose sale to GNPC.

According to the news publication, the NDC has some competent materials who have, at various times, worked in the Energy Ministry and understand the fallout of the botched transaction, but observers have been worried at the deafening silence of the minority, especially those on the Mines and Energy Committee.

Amongst these are; Edward Bawa, Member of Parliament Bongo in the Upper East Region and the Ranking Member, John Jinapor, MP for Yapei-Kusawgu in the Savanna Region, Kwabena Donkor, MP for Pru East in Bono East Region and Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah, the MP for Ellembele in the Western Region.

They have either been spokespersons, deputy ministers, or substantive ministers at the Energy Ministry. Interestingly, they have kept total silence on the matter since news broke that the transaction had collapsed because AGM had pulled out, technically, handing over the oil some state officials were willing to sink over US$1.65 billion for free.

The NDC minority addressed the media to discredit the claim by the news report.

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Speaker of the Community Parliament Rt. Hon Dr. Sidie Mohammed Tunis is advocating for more female representation in the Nigeria delegation as currently the number stands at thirty-five (35) with only two (2) female representatives.

Speaking in an interview with the ECOWAS Parliament Press Corps in Freetown, Sierra Leone, at the end of the two day symposium on women proportional representation in politics, organised by the ECOWAS Female Parliamentarians Association (ECOFEPA), Speaker Tunis described the development as being “really, really not good” and expressed his plans to continue engaging the leadership of Nigeria to change the status quo.

“I am hoping to engage the next Speaker in the Nigeria National Assembly and the President of the Senate to encourage them to have more women in the ECOWAS Parliament. We also want to have a special programme just for Nigeria to encourage the stakeholders and the political leadership to ensure that they have more women on their tickets, not just for the National Assembly, but for even Local Government.

Speaker Tunis said the Community Parliament has a whole year Program, and the symposium in Sierra Leone is just the beginning of many to follow to popularize the idea of 30 percent affirmative action for women. “We are also going to have another program [a Town Hall Meeting] in Abuja before the next Ordinary Session, where we are even inviting MPs from Rwanda to come and share their experiences with us [ECOWAS Parliament]. We will also have workshops in Member States to ensure that we do not just pass laws, but to see action.”

He believes the advocacy campaign in Freetown can be organised across the sub-region to have a minimum of 30 percent quota for women.

Last year, through a conversation between the Speaker and the ECOWAS Commission, the Parliament was able to secure funding for ECOFEPA’s activities.

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West Africa has one of the lowest electrification rates, with 220 million people living without access, coupled with some of the highest electricity costs in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Statistically, only about 42% of the total population, and 8% of rural residents, have access to electricity.

This sorry state of energy in the sub-region presents grave consequences because electricity is an important step toward enhancing people’s opportunities and choices. Access is key to boosting economic activity and contributes to improving human capital, which, in turn, is an investment in a country’s potential.

Over the last few decades, the sub-region has steadily turned focused to Renewable Energy, to augment for the terrible energy shortfall.

It’s against this backdrop and other concerns that the parliamentary arm of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is convening a delocalized meeting on energy issues and women’s empowerment sensitization campaign in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital city.

The announcement was made in a Media Advisory released by the Communication Division of the Parliament on Thursday 16th March 2023.

The delocalized meeting will focus on the theme, “Building the regional energy market for a perfect energy transition,” and will run from the 20th to the 25th of March 2023.

The meeting is to feature eight (Energy and Mining/ Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources/Infrastructure/Industry and Private Sector/ Public Accounts/Macroeconomic Policy and Economic/Administration, Finance and Budget/ and Health) of the Parliament’s fourteen Standing Committees of the Parliament.

A World Bank publication on ‘sustainable energy for all’ entitled, ‘Regional electricity trade, the key to unleashing West Africa’s power,’ written by Charles Cormier and published in July 2020, noted that, “Home to a rapidly growing population and persistently high rates of poverty, West Africa suffers from an energy conundrum that if solved, has the potential to unleash economic development, drive down poverty, and improve the quality of life of millions of people.”

The article also highlighted that the region is caught in a vicious energy cycle plagued by unreliable, extremely expensive power supplies, low rates of electricity access, and an inability to recover the exorbitantly high cost of producing electricity.

“Only 50% of the population has access to electricity – an unreliable supply at best. Power supplies suffer from an average of 44 hours of outages per month and are among the most expensive in the world with prices averaging about $0.20 per kilowatt-hour.

West Africans pay about twice as much for electricity as their neighbors on the eastern side of the continent, and for those living in the region’s fragile states, prices can be as high as $0.40 per Kilowatt-hour,” according to the publication.

Separately, the Association of ECOWAS Female Parliamentarians dubbed, ECOFEPA is also set to hold a sensitization campaign tomorrow (Friday 17th Marc, 2023) and the following day in Freetown to deliberate on women’s empowerment issues in the sub-region.

In retrospect, The ECOWAS Parliament, also known as the Community Parliament, is one of the Institutions of ECOWAS. It is the Assembly of Peoples of the Community serving as a forum for dialogue, consultation and consensus for Representatives of the people of West Africa with the aim of promoting integration.

The Parliament is composed of one hundred and fifteen (115) seats. Each Member State shall have a guaranteed minimum of five (5) seats. The remaining forty (40) seats shall be shared on the basis of population.

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Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) has launched a new campaign – Parliaments for the Planet, designed to mobilize parliaments and parliamentarians to act on the climate emergency.

The campaign will encourage parliaments and those who work in them to lead by example, reduce their own carbon footprint and take concrete measures to implement the Paris Agreement on climate to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The campaign consists of two parts. Part one encourages parliaments and parliamentarians themselves to become greener and decarbonize. To support them, the IPU has published a guide: 10 Actions for Greener Parliaments (and those who work in them).

The 10 actions include measures to make parliamentary work more sustainable, by, for example, tracking the emissions of the parliament itself and setting targets to reduce them; switching to renewable energy; implementing green procurement practices; and embracing digitalization.

Parliamentarians are encouraged to become climate champions by raising awareness among their constituents and working across party lines to accelerate green policies both within and outside parliament.

Part two of the campaign is designed to empower parliaments and parliamentarians to produce effective legislation on climate change, vote in the necessary budgets and scrutinize government action, especially progress on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to implement the Paris Agreement.

The NDCs set out the efforts being made by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impact of climate change.

The campaign will encourage parliaments to engage more closely with the processes of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, especially in the lead-up to COP28 in the United Arab Emirates in December 2023.

In parallel with the campaign, the IPU will serve as a platform to share good parliamentary practice on climate action by highlighting initiatives that parliaments and parliamentarians are taking to become greener, as well as examples of effective legislation.

Over 3,000 examples of climate laws and policies have already been gathered together in the climate change laws of the world database, produced by the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute in partnership with the IPU.

The IPU works closely with UN organizations and technical partners to ensure parliamentarians have access to the latest scientific knowledge and solutions concerning climate change. The campaign is also supported by the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University.

To link in with the campaign, the 2023 Cremer-Passy Prize will be awarded to an MP or group of MPs who have made an outstanding contribution to climate action. The Prize is named after the IPU founders William Randall Cremer and Frédéric Passy, visionary parliamentarians from Great Britain and France, who convened the first meeting of the IPU in Paris in 1889.

The campaign was launched at the 146th IPU Assembly 146th IPU in Manama, Bahrain in front of hundreds of parliamentarians from some 130 countries.

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The 146th Assembly of the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) which ends today in Manama, Bahrain welcomes back into its fold Liberia’s Parliament to its global Parliamentary Community. IPU’s membership now stands at one hundred and seventy-nine (179) with all African countries now represented.

Liberia was one of the nine founding members of the IPU along with Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and the United States of America.

In 1889, Mr. Leopold Carrance, an MP from Liberia, joined 94 other parliamentarians attending the first Inter-Parliamentary Conference in Paris, France.

Ms. Jewel Howard-Taylor, President of the Senate, addressing the IPU Assembly, said “It is a humbling duty for me; on behalf of my nation Liberia and the Liberian Legislature; to accept the call for my Nation Liberia to return to the fold of the IPU; after a long absence.

This return to the IPU is of significance, especially taking note of the historical fact that Liberia was one of the original founding member Parliaments of the Organisation in October 1889; at a time when there were no established means for Governments or parliaments to work together internationally.”

The Liberian Parliament is made up of two chambers: the House of Representatives with 73 directly elected members (of which 11% are women) and the Senate with 30 directly elected members (of which 6.7% of women).

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Minister for Health Kwaku Agyeman Manu on Thursday, March 9, 2023 briefed the House on shortage of some childhood vaccines stating that it regrettably coincided with the performance of the economy towards the second half of last year thus affecting the normal procurement processes which resulted in delays for vaccines we would have needed in 2023.

Despite the delay in our procurement processes, we had stocks which carried us through 2022, resulting in our end of year national coverage of 95% measles, OPV, 90%, and BCG 96%.

A district is said to be in an outbreak when there are two or more laboratory confirmed measles cases that are temporally related (with dates of rash onset occurring 7-21 days apart) and the cases are linked, he said.
In this context, five districts in the Northern Region have been in an outbreak situation including Tamale Metro; Kumbungu; Savelugu; Karaga and Nanumba North.

The vaccination coverage for 2022 for the 5 districts are moderately high and are as follows; Savelugu 80.5%, Tamale Metro 107.8, Karaga 101.9%, Kumbungu 96.3% and Nanumba North 74.2% and we believe this is enough to prevent an outbreak.

“Mr. Speaker, one major contributor to measles outbreak is accumulation of unvaccinated persons over a period of time. These children constitute a cohort of vulnerable groups who become the focus of infection. This is why the country has been conducting mass catch-up and follow-up measles (and rubella) vaccination campaigns every three to five years with support from Gavi, WHO, UNICEF and other Partners. And this year’s Mass campaign is yet to be undertaken and discussions with our Partners are on-going”.

“It is important to correct the erroneous impression that, there have been deaths from measles in Ghana recently. For the avoidance of doubt, there have been no deaths from the recent recorded spike in measles cases”.

Indeed there have been no deaths since 2003 though we have recorded cases annually, mercifully, no child has died in this outbreak.

The Ministry, working with WHO and other Partners, has initiated an application to the International Coordination Group (ICG) for supply of Measles-Rubella vaccines for outbreak response vaccination campaign.

“Mr. Speaker, we have made all necessary efforts to ensure that we secure adequate stocks within the next few weeks., working with UNICEF, we are fast-tracking the processes and it is expected that the vaccines will be supplied in the next few weeks, all things being equal”.

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