Category: General

Liberia’s delegation to the Community Parliament on Saturday, December 3, 2022 in its country report presented by a member of its delegation to the plenary, Hon Clarence Massaquoi noted that they have made significant progress in the payment of its Community levy on monthly basis especially for the first quarter of 2022.

However, the Country continues to struggle in the payment of the Levy arrears and said amount is accumulating monthly as reconciled by the Community Levy Technical Mission in Liberia February 2022.

On the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS), the implementation continues during the year under review a number of registered companies under the scheme rose from 15 to 17 in 2022. Of the 17 enterprises, 15 are exporting active 40 products.

Since its adoption in 2017, the Common External Tariff (CET) considered a four year migration plan that ends in 2022.

However, the Monitoring Committee is yet to be constituted to ensure full compliance of Member States including Liberia. Liberia is yet to fully implement and operationalized the CET.

Additionally, the ECOWAS harmonized CET implementation is on-going as the region is, “negotiating the African Free Continental Trade Area (AfCFTA) as a bloc while granting the ETLS trade preference to its member countries”, he told the House.

As the country is continuously participating and complying with provision of the Protocols on Free Movement of Persons, Goods and Services and the Right to Residence and has conducted series of sensitization mission especially carried out by the ECOWAS National Office and other partners involved in the integration process.

Consequently, the ECOWAS Common Passport has been adopted, Visa-free movement of community citizens observed, a 90-day stay without residence permit implemented and a National Bio-metric Identity Card has been rolled out.

The Liberia’s Council of National Bureau of the ECOWAS Brown Card Scheme has completed the payment of 50.0 percent of its arrears to the Council of Bureau which was a pre–requisite for the lifting of their sanctions and partial waiver of their remaining debt.

Also the National Bureau has also regularized Liberia’s country contribution to the Council which puts the country in line to assume full membership role and benefits under the ECOWAS Brown Card scheme for 2022.

This has been possible through the successful implementation of the simultaneous sale of the Brown Card alongside the motor insurance stickers as agreed upon in Protocol A/P1/5/82 on the Establishment of the ECOWAS Brown Card relating to Motor Vehicle 3rd Party Liability Insurance.

The convention relating to the ECOWAS Inter-State Road Transit of Goods (ISRT) is being implemented by the Liberian authorities in line with the WTO TFA, but the major focus of the Scheme is on the implementation of the MRU Inter- State Road Transit Scheme within the framework of the MRU Truckers Association.

The Country is yet to establish and put in place the introduction of way-bridges. However, the country has issued and commenced the regulations of the Axel Load limit of 11.5 tones in compliance with the ECOWAS Supplementary Act of 2012.

And Liberia has signed the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) agreement between West Africa and European Union.

However, the Authorities are yet to commence domestication of the agreement pending the conclusion of the Agreement by ECOWAS.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament is to issue a statement on the attack of a Senegal female lawmaker Hon Amy Ndiaye by a male colleague in their National Assembly – a video that has gone viral and attracted condemnation of this act.

A member of the Senegalese delegation to the Community Parliament, Abdoulaye Vilane raised this issue at the plenary on Saturday, December 3, 2022 when Liberia and Sierra Leone were scheduled to present their country report to the plenary.

The third deputy Speaker of the Community Parliament Memounatou Ibrahima, fourth deputy Speaker Adja Satu Camara Pinto Hon. Abdoulaye Vilane and the Parliament Secretariat are to issue a statement in the coming days.

On point of order his colleague from Togo drew Mr. Speaker’s attention that the House has an agenda it has adopted for the day, they should and asked that they stick to the agenda which Speaker Dr. Sidie M. Tunis agreed with.

The Speaker on the subject matter pointed out that, respect for women anywhere is very important and whatever the circumstance violence against women should not be allowed, and recounted that there has been violence before in the Sierra Leone Parliament and other parliaments within the sub-region and the world at large.

And as a Speaker the attack of the Senegalese female MP, what he saw on the video circulating is something the community parliament will look at, at a later time, they will look at other videos from other parliament irrespective of where the incident happened in this particular case all of them are concerned because of what they saw.

“A man coming across whether the person is an MP coming across and actually beating up a woman, I am sure we will look at it, but like what the MP from Togo said there is an agenda that has been adopted and any other thing relating to the matter will come later on”.

The Rt. Hon speaker urged a Committee of the Community Parliament, Committee on Political Affairs, Peace, Security and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) to take a critical look at the kind of things happening now.

If the need be a visit be made to Senegal either in January or February of next year not because of the female MP attacked in question, but to look at the entire political situation considering the outcome of their Legislative Assembly election.

There are a lot of changes that has taken place in Senegal, that probably warrant the intervention of that committee and from what I hear, it’s the opposition MP that beat up the government MP normally it’s the other way round but this time it’s the opposition MP and its very serious even if your visit is for a week, he stated.

Speaker Tunis backed the point raised by Abdoulaye Vilane, stating that if there were security forces around when the female MP was in danger all that was needed was to call the security to come in.

“If my Speaker in Sierra Leone’s life is in danger we cannot handle, the best you can do is to call in the state security. I am the Speaker of ECOWAS Parliament, I am not justifying police entering our parliament, I am only saying you need a police to protect the Hon Speaker and Hon members if there was a police officer around, this will not have happened in Senegal”.

“Let say in the case of Sierra Leone, if the police were not around, “our Speaker would have been in the hospital by now”, he added.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

A member of Nigerians delegation to the Community Parliament, Awaji-Inombek D. Abiante has said the reduction in the budgetary allocation to the ECOWAS Radio in Monrovia for the year ended December 31, 2023 is a minus and a no no.

According to him Parliament should revisit the issue and rather maintain the allocation given to the ECOWA Radio in the 2022 budgetary allocation rather than cutting fifty percent of their budgetary allocation.

In an interview he noted that other lawmakers in the Community Parliament shares his sentiment, stating that the reduction in the budgetary allocation has to do with the Radio station not utilizing this year’s budgetary allocations.

“I do not understand their impediment towards the untilisation; were they given the go ahead to manage themselves? It has not been clear and from the explanation, I think something has not been properly disclosed to us. If truly we want to have the participation of the various communities and truly we want others to know what we do and probably have that support it’s important that we support the radio and provide them with all that they will require in terms of equipment and man power, getting to online platforms. Most of us if you ask do not even know that ECOWAS has a radio situated somewhere in Monrovia”, he stated.

And further added that the Head of the Radio station should have been invited to tell lawmakers, explain to lawmakers why they were unable to utilise what was appropriated to them, they need to know.

For someone who has not come to parliament to defend his or her position and tell us that the person could not utislise allocation for 2022, “I do not see how that fit into the purpose of what we are doing”.

In addition, he questioned, if in Liberia the ECOWAS Radio is broadcasting; he does not know and if they are broadcasting what is the range, how many people do they reach? “There is a lot of question surrounding the ECOWAS radio and the reduction in budget”.

“If you in Ghana cannot receive signal and I cannot receive in Nigeria and several other communities cannot receive and they are returning money and cutting down on their budget, a lot of things are still unknown to members of Parliament”.

He indicated they are desirous and want to understand what the challenges are; unless and until there is proper oversight and an invitation to the Head of Radio to appear before the Parliament and tell them their own side of the story what happen to the radio station, the true picture will not be known.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, in collaboration with other sponsors have sponsored the training of journalists within the West African Sub-region on the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement.

In all thirty journalists from the English speaking West Africa member states and French speaking member states are being hosted in Abuja Nigeria for this training programme.

 Dr. Sacko Seydou programme officer competition and informal trade who represented the Commissioner for Trade in an interview with Ghanamps.com noted that the training will offer journalists selected within the West African sub-region the opportunity to better understand issues relating to AfCFTA and put them in a better position to communicate issue better to ECOWAS citizens and civil society on the trade agreement.

He said there is good opportunity for the region to enhance the integration process and the journalists should be the first point of contact to communicate to citizens of the member states and to the private sector.

“That is why we are having this training, to give them good background and information on the agreement for the Commission to fast track it and ensure that member states will be on the same page of understanding on what the two agreement can help us with the integration process”, he said.

He added that as a sub-region, we need to be very competitive, to take advantage of the whole process. We need to gain something, but if within our sub-region people do not know what is going on, then we will be lacking behind; our role now is to communicate”.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

The ECOWAS Parliament at its plenary on Wednesday, November 30, 2022 during the ongoing 2022 Second Ordinary Session of the Parliament holding in Abuja from 24 Nov – December 18, 2022, adopted the report and recommendations for the ECOWAS Commission’s consolidated budget of UA418, 072,408 for 2023.

Presided by the Honourable Speaker, Dr. Sidie Mohamed Tunis, the Parliament also mandated the Speaker to convey the favourable opinion on the ECOWAS Commission’s Adhoc Committee report and recommendation to the Chairman of the Council of the Heads of State for consideration.

It would be recalled that the Administration and Finance Committee (AFC) of the ECOWAS Commission has earlier presented for the Parliament’s consideration a draft budget of Four Hundred and Twenty-Seven Million Unit of Account (UA 427,979,594) for 2023.

The Chairperson of the AFC, Cristina Pedreira who made the Presentation before Members of the Parliament’, said that the Committee came up with the draft budget and recommendations sequel to the 32nd Meeting of the AFC which held from November 14 – 21, 2022.

Meanwhile, the AFC report indicated a general appeal to member states to comply with the provisions of the ECOWAS Community Levy protocol to avoid imposition of the stipulated sanctions.
This elicited contributions at plenary by Parliamentarians who decried the lukewarm attitude of some member states with regard to non-payment by certain member states of community levies.

These taxes, it should be remembered, constitute between 70 and 90% of the Community budget and are levied by each Member State through a mechanism known as the “community levy” which is at a rate of 0. 5% imposed on goods from non-ECOWAS member states.

The parliamentarians denounced the attitude of certain countries which have not made any repayments since the beginning of this year 2022. They rose up against this state of affairs, considering that the States up to date with their contributions cannot, out of simple convenience, continue to pay instead of others.

Parliamentarians were surprised that Member States such as Burkina-Faso and Guinea are up to date with their dues while these countries are experiencing a military-political crisis that is disrupting their economies. On the other hand, they argue, countries that enjoy political and institutional stability are unable to honor their commitments to the community by paying back the community taxes that have been levied.

The parliamentarians then demanded that parliament deal with this situation urgently so that it does not happen again next year.

On this issue, Cape Verdean parliamentarians called on the parliament to use the mechanisms at its disposal to find a way out of this worrying situation.

Ghanamps.com

Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto has told Parliament the Eastern Region will host the National Farmers Day celebration on the theme, “Accelerating Agricultural Development Through Value Addition”.
According to him pursuant to Public Holidays Act, 2001 (Act 601), this year’s National Farmers’ Day, the 38th edition, falls on Friday, 2nd December, 2022.

In a statement on the floor of the House he noted that, preparations are feverishly underway to ensure a memorable and successful occasion the choice of the Eastern Region was based on a long-standing rotational principle for determining the venue of National Farmers’ Day celebrations in the country.

The theme aligns with government’s vision of modernizing and transforming agriculture, relevant objectives of the President’s Coordinated Programme of Socio-economic Development Policies, and the Sustainable Development Goals, especially Goals one(1) and two (2) which advocate the eradication of extreme Poverty in all forms and Zero Hunger respectively.

Mr. Speaker, the strategic intervention and the success of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFI) campaign, speaks clearly to government’s relentless efforts of systematically addressing the long- standing problems of Ghana’s agriculture, he said.

The Horticultural sub-sector now has three new Greenhouse centres located at Dawhenya, Bodwiase and Akomadan in the Greater Accra, Central and Ashanti Regions respectively.

Others include the construction and rehabilitation of major irrigation schemes, feeder roads and 80(1000mt tons capacity) warehouses constructed throughout the country.

Dr. Owusu Afriyie told the House in 2019 the agriculture sector grew by 4.7% followed by 7.4% in 2020 and a record 8.4% in 2021. With the excellent rains this year we expect the substantial growth performance of recent years to be repeated this year 2022.

Whiles, the strongest growth in recent years have increased the share of agriculture sector in Ghana’s GDP from 18% in 2016 to 22% by 2021. These impressive results were posted by the sector against all odds, when multiple external shocks and unfavourable external global conditions had impacted virtually every economy including Ghana.

Supply chains had been badly disrupted resulting in acute shortage in critical inputs like fertilizers, the Animal sector which had been badly hit by diseases such as swine flu and the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, while farmlands were also being destroyed by galamsey activities, he stated.

“Mr. Speaker, we in government recognize that the impressive performance of the agricultural sector is largely due to sacrifices and the tireless efforts of our heroic farmers. As a people, the least we can do therefore is to continue to celebrate and reward our farmers with rising farm productivity and incomes”.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

The Minority in parliament on Tuesday, November 29, 2022 insisted that the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta be made to be present in the House before the commencement of debate on the 2023 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of Government.

Deputy Minority Whip, Ahmed Ibrahim, raised the issue when the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin called for the debate to start.

The Minority Whip was not pleased at all that the Finance Minister presented the budget to the House but failed to be present to take their input.

“Mr. Speaker it is only appropriate that the Finance Minister must be here,. Mr. Speaker, if he is not ready to do the job he must let the House know. He must be here for us to make our input but he is not here. We are in a critical stage as a country and we want to treat our suggestions in a form of debate”.

He insisted that the alternative views would come from the Minority side and stated that “our views cannot just be said without being considered”.

For him, the Minority took serious concerns about the absence of the finance Minister in the House.

His argument was supported by other members of the Minority including the Ranking member on the Finance Committee, Ato Forson who said the attitude of the Finance Minister towards the House was becoming too much. “Mr. Speaker, the practice where minsters of finance present budget and failed to collect input should not be entertained. It is becoming too much from this Finance Minister.

He argued that “you cannot read a budget and fail to solicit input to improve it going forward. Mr. Speaker, this is unbecoming of our minister responsible for finance, and we should not entertain it”.

The Minority even called on the Speaker not to allow the debate to start unless the finance minister appears.

However, the Leader of Government Business, and Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu clarified that the Minister of Finance sought permission from the Speaker and leadership of the House that for some reasons he was not going to be available to attend to the debate in the House as he was travelling outside the country to represent the country. As such the two deputies are present in the House to take the necessary notes of the contributions of members.

This was corroborated by the Speaker and confirmed that the Finance Minister duly sought permission to be absent.

Ghanamps.com

The first day of debate on the 2023 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of government lacks the energy from the Majority side of the House.

The Majority that is supposed to push the agenda of government appears not too keen in the debate as their turn-up was so low.

Even the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu had course to mock at the Leader of the House for the low turn-up from his colleagues and asked him to take charge of his people.

The usual cheers and support that characterized previous debate was completely nonexistent from the Majority side.

Ghanamps.com

President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria H. E. Muhammadu Buhari has reaffirmed the commitment of his country to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with the support of its partners to keep the sub-region peaceful, secure and politically stable.

According to him in this regard, Nigeria remains committed to supporting ECOWAS to restore democratic rule in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso.

He made this remarks on Monday, November 28, 2022 in Abuja at the opening of the second Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament when he gave his message as a distinguished guest.

And added that sustenance of democracy and rule of law should remain the norm in the West Africa sub-region, ahead of multiple political activities in some member states including Nigeria, where there will be general elections in February and March of 2023.

“Let me seize this opportunity to reiterate my commitment to free, fair and transparent elections and smooth transitions. This is one legacy that I want my administration to bequeath, not only to Nigeria, but to the region as a whole”, he said.

Also at the regional level, Sierra Leone and Liberia are also preparing for elections. As in the past, Nigeria is ready to stand by any country in the region that is committed to organising free and fair elections.

On the issue of election of Members of the ECOWAS Parliament by Direct Universal Suffrage, he recounted that he gave Nigeria’s assurance to support the process, provided it is conducted with minimum or even at no cost at all, to the Community.

“Let me underscore that the ECOWAS Parliament can only fulfill its true mandate when it has a set of directly elected and dedicated Members. I believe that a membership of the ECOWAS Parliament, not drawn from serving members of Parliaments of Member States, would be a good step towards injecting our regional integration with new energy and initiative”.

As a country that believes strongly in regional integration and cooperation, he emphasize that Nigeria will continue to support all the ECOWAS Institutions domiciled within the country. And their pledge to construct a new permanent headquarters for this Parliament remains as irrevocable and strong as ever.

“I had hoped for the completion and formal commissioning of the project before leaving office. The , desire to create an ECOWAS complex, housing the Commission, the Parliament and the Court all in one arena, led to the delay”.

He said has been informed of the harmonization in drawings and other technicalities have been concluded and that the ground-breaking ceremony of the ECOWAS Commission’s headquarters to be constructed by the Government of the Peoples Republic of China has been scheduled to take place on 5th December 2022.

“ The vision of the founding fathers of ECOWAS was to have a West Africa that is integrated economically with harmonized policies and enjoying free movement of persons, goods and services, as well as seamless right to establishment. We must continue to strive harder to attain those objectives”, he emphasised.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com

Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament Rt. Hon Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin said he does not think and cannot see Accra in the next ten years getting  anywhere near  Rwanda Kigali,  which is known as the cleanest city in Africa.

According to him Rwanda after their genocide sat together to put a programme in place immediately coming out of their genocide, worked as a team and made statement trying to improve their system.

In an interview with Ghanamps.com on the side line at the just ended 145th General Assembly of the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Rwanda- Kigali, responding to whether Accra can be clean like Kigali, Speaker Bagbin pointed out that as we move around in Kigali they had map out areas where people are not to build houses.

“You see people growing vegetables; in Accra the small, small streams we have, they have all been filled with garbage and we are living by the Akuapem ridge when there is rain, the water does not have anywhere to go than to run down and try to run into the sea. There were hold on ponds created around, when there is heavy rain they enter those ponds and try to fill the ponds before moving off; now all the places have been covered, so the water just come down”, he lamented.

The former health Minister gave historical antecedents of efforts to get Accra clean by previous and current governments, saying “we say cleanliness is next to Godliness, and this was one of the core values of the Gold Coast or Ghanaians”.

And recounted that in the earlier days, Gold Coast (Ghana) had town council officers who moved around to ensure Ghanaians had clean environment; “we took care of our health in the schools, early in the morning we were busy cleaning the areas”.

He said the concept of cleanliness was so cherished that even personal hygiene including the inspection of body, clothing, and teeth was a major issue for teachers. “It has always been with us, but along the way we got a number of interruptions. That is one of the areas that we have some difficulties; life is about evolution, usually when there is a revolution there is some destruction, people do not take time to cost”.

The benefit is always bigger than the cost; it’s only when you have that sharp evolution then you take time to recover, then there may be some changes that you try to inculcate in the people that can last for some time. That was not the case in Ghana; we were having frequent changes, evolutions and so some of the core values then got lost, he stated.

He also attributed our difficulties to coups, stating that all these coups and counter coups add up to it; “by the time that we came to constitutional rule we have lost focus, it is now difficult for us to crawl back, we have lost discipline and order”. And the kind of harmony we used to work together to ensure there was cleanliness, orderliness is not existent.

Rt. Hon Speaker Bagbin pointed out that after the change of government in 2000, because, “Rawlings has been there for a long time, people were not really appreciating the process that Rawlings put in place”.

Then came the government of former President John Agyekum Kufuor, who establish a Ministry called the ‘Beautification of the Capital City’.  It caught on because it’s one of the serious concerns of Ghanaians; “how to get back that value”.

“Late Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey was put in charge of that Ministry, in spite of all the talks, things got worse”, he lamented.

After that there was transition and former President, John Evans Atta Mills came and also brought about a ‘Better Ghana Agenda’ trying to improve on all those things.

Then currently we have President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government also talking about making, “Accra the cleanest city in Africa”.

“I listen to these things and I laugh because, many of them do not know the magnitude of the problem; the kind of investment made into it; that is why some of us underscore the importance of long term vision where we will seat and agree that, “in this number of years of time this is where we want to be, how do we get there?”.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com/Rwanda/Kigali