News:
March 10, 2022
Direct election is the first step to achieving full legislative competence and would eradicate issues occasioned by the duality of Membership, the paramount being the inability of Members to perform their duties at the ECOWAS Parliament, especially when critical issues are being debated at the national level,. Rt. Hon. Sidie Mohammed Tunis noted in his open remarks at the ongoing first in-person Extraordinary Session in Monrovia Liberia.
“We also strongly believe that with a set of directly elected Members, much more can be achieved, reflecting further, we hold the view that with the coming into being of the African Continental Free Trade Area, global dynamics and insurmountable challenges to which our world has been subjected to, necessitates that ECOWAS think out of the box”.
He called, on ECOWAS to initiate multiple engagements with contiguous with the aim of fostering common approaches to such challenges.
“Here we have in mind countries like Mauritania, (a former Member State of the Community) and the Kingdom of Morocco. Others are Cameroon, Chad and Central Africa Republic to the North East and Equatorial Guinea and Soa Tome and Principe to the South”.
In addition, he noted that such, alliances, when successfully forged would, no doubt, usher in the beginning of the process of a new regional development trajectory, aimed at giving our region a sense of peace, dignity and prosperity.
In view of the above and in line with Article 24.2 Paragraph G of the Supplementary Act Relating to the Enhancement of the Powers of the ECOWAS Parliament, I, at the head of a Parliamentary Delegation, conducted two very important visits last February.
First to the Republic of Panama for an Inter-Parliamentary Summit of Regional and Provincial Unions in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and then to the Kingdom of Morocco for a working visit at the invitation of the Honorable Speaker of the House of Councilors.
In Morocco we held bilateral discussions aimed at strengthening relations between the ECOWAS Parliament and the Moroccan Parliament and that resulted into the signing of the Laayoune Declaration, which provides the basics of forging ahead with our collaboration, he announced.
“While we condemn and shame evil in the region, it is also very important that we commend efforts that are moving regional democracy in the right direction. I wish to use this medium to commend the good people of the Gambia for the peaceful manner in which the December polls were conducted. Gambia’s election was preceded by similar elections in Cape Verde, with both countries demonstrating in very clear terms, that democracy can win, and democracy has won”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com/ Liberia