News:
December 11, 2019
President of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, Jean-Claude Kasi has disclosed that several sub-regional countries have reached the single currency “ECO” convergence criteria as of 2019.
According to the Commission President, it is not only Togo that had made it to the convergence criteria as being speculated in the media.
“As of June 2019 there are several countries, once we have the data for December this year, we would submit that to the Authority of Heads of States”, he said in an interview on Tuesday 10th December 2019 after presenting the state of the community report to the Community Parliament.
He further explained that the Authority of Heads of States have set a date for the launching of the single currency, which is 2020, but there are a lot of steps that would have to be achieved and key decisions that would have to be taken which are fundamental.
For instance, the exchange rate mechanism, “what is the exchange rate regime in each ECOWAS member state today? There are different exchange rate regimes and each country has its own exchange regime, which one do we use for everybody, he queried.
“It is a very difficult decision, it took us a year to finally make a decision and appreciable exchange rate, had been agreed upon”, he said.
What type of Central Bank do we want as we have several types? To this end, finally, a decision has been reached, “we would have a federal system of a federal bank, let us be very clear if we do not converge it means we are diverging if you are diverging how can you have a single currency?”
He emphasized that it is only “when you converge that you get one currency, and the convergence is very critical and being monitored by Central bank Governors in the Ministerial committee every six months, and generating reports to the Heads of States.
“Once we have the final convergence criteria in 2020 on this bases then the single currency of ECOWAS can be launched”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com/Abuja