Dr. Tony Luka Luka Elumelu
June 24, 2022

Acting Director for the Private Sector at ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Tony Luka Luka Elumelu said there are very beautiful and legal instruments within the West African sub-regional block, but the biggest problem is its implementation. According to him implementation arises because the end beneficiaries who are the ECOWAS citizens are not carried along, and ones protocols are adopted they are kept under lock and key.

“Community citizens do not even know about it, how do they see ECOWAS, either as the Heads of states meetings, MPs meeting, Court of justice or the Commission and it’s what its”. He made this remarks on Thursday, June 23, 2022 when the joint committee on Trade, Customs and Free Movement and Infrastructure met to consider a referral from the Commission, the ECOWAS Parliament to give its opinion on the draft Supplementary Act SP/XX/06/22 amending the Act SP/17/02/12 on the harmonization of standards and procedures for checking the loading capacity, weight and axle load of heavy duty vehicles in the ECOWAS Member States.
“MPs, there is a problem, the earlier we identify the problem the better for us. There is a new world order, there is economic crunch we kept talking about donors, the donors are also looking for money, the basic you need is food security, we have vast land than any region in the world and the cross border programme has also captured that and point”. Again, as ECOWAS he underscored the importance of re-aligning programmes to start addressing this issue and advocated for head of all ECOWAS institutions to meet for a retreat to address the need for a paradigm shift in terms of implementation, “our programmes”.

“We cannot be doing our job as a Commission, without meeting the people who have been elected and if we do not rout through them the message ends there. There was a meeting held by the ECOWAS Court of justice in Cape Verde few months ago on sovereignty, it is a big issue that we should address, member state were invited they are still very confused about the work of ECOWAS”. There are instruments that are supposed to be domesticated at the state level from the Free Movement, “I ask, are we all using ECOWAS Passport, yes, there was no place where it was domesticated, we should address issue that are paramount. If you look at the cross boundary programme it is an amalgamation of all our programmes because the essence is to ensure that we improve the livelihood of our community citizens”.

Whiles addressing the Committee members on the need to push for the approval of the referral, he noted that advocacy work are supposed to be done by the Community Parliament, but how can that be achieved if the Commission does not involve them in their programme, “we should make a provision so that MPs within the Committees in programmes go along with us”. His remarks follows a revelation that MPs were not aware of almost all the joint Committee meetings the Commission organised within member states. “You cannot be more Catholic than the Pope, you cannot go to Senegal without touching base with an ECOWAS MP from that place”.

“If the citizens see you there on ECOWAS programme with the participation of the MPs, the citizens would say this is genuine, it’s now time that the MPs should ask the Commission to bring out all its instruments and every member should start talking about it status of implementation instead of keeping green protocols and third implementation act”.

And funding of the ECOWAS cross-border cooperation programme (ECBCP) is a grass root thing this is where, “our people would feel us the cross border programme is a programme that would connect you from Nigeria to Senegal and whatever it is a programme that has captured the private sector the infrastructure and re-direct us on how we are doing things we need to re direct things to help us achieve vision 2050”. The joint Committee would adopt its report today, Friday, June 24, 2022 for onwards discussion and adoption at the plenary.

Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com/Abuja-Nigeria