News:
Former Majority Leader
December 11, 2022
Chairman of the Committee on Macro-Economic Policy and Economic Research of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament, Kebba K. Barrow, has bemoaned the lack of coordination when it comes to the collection of the Community levy.
According to him there is again, lack of information flow from the Ministry of Finance to the Central Bank and various central banks of the various member states.
And as a budget meeting with the ongoing second ordinary session of the ECOWAS Parliament in Abuja Nigeria, “transfer collection of levies is becoming problematic and from the discussions and views of lawmakers, colleagues from Cape Verde collection has been done but transfer is problematic”.
In an interview with Ghanamps.com, he noted that the issue of delay in payment of the Community levy can be addressed with effective coordination and member states should not default to let their levies accumulate as it becomes difficult to pay.
Hence most of the member states having issues with regard to payment of their community levies should go into agreement with the Community, if they can come out with a payment plan.
Hon Barrow further noted that when it comes to preparation of Country report where the issue of payment of Community levies would come out, country representatives should be able to have their status report from their Finance Ministries.
“Again, the whole thing is how sure are we that the deduction are done, and if they are not done if the funds are there why is it being difficult for you to do any transfer?” He asked.
As to whether Community lawmakers should get involve with this whole process of payment of the Community levies as it comes up twice in a year when Ordinary Sessions are being held in Abuja Nigeria, he noted that it’s very important parliament get involved, as part of their oversight role to take up these issue and it’s the same budget they need to undertake their oversight trips and embark on sensitization programmes.|
In addition, the former Majority Leader pointed out that Gambia is one of the few countries that do not owe Community levy, any time as a delegation when they get back to their country they check to ensure that the funds are transferred to ECOWAS.
And for ECOWAS citizens to know what the institution is doing there is the need for this levies to be paid, as in the case of the Community Parliament, in the immediate past Parliament, they were very visible at the various borders of member states.
“We saw the integration process going on, but the fact is people need to know what we are doing; we can only do that when we have time with the regional integration ministries to be able to highlight their programme. Now that, the budget is with us we need to do an annual conference in our respective countries to give a rundown of some of the activities going to be held in 2023”, he stated.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com